


The Huntress and the Fox

by Jrade



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: (Although it's not dubious it's just absent), (Correct me if I'm wrong though as always and I'll adjust the tags), (because Me), (because Mind Control), (because Vampires), (but I feel like that's what people expect with the "dubious" tag?), Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Anger, Bloodthrall Emily, Bloodthrall Lena, Death, Dubious Consent, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/F, F/M, Halloween Special, Mind Control, Multi, NSFW, Physical Abuse, Probably-gratuitous descriptions of blood, Probably-gratuitous descriptions of everything else, Sexual Content, Unhealthy Relationships, Vampire Widowmaker | Amélie Lacroix, Violence, Witch Angela "Mercy" Ziegler, featuring:, so many lesbians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-09 17:05:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 14
Words: 91,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16453925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jrade/pseuds/Jrade
Summary: They called her Amélie Lacroix, once. Now, they call her nothing - call her nothing because they do not see her, locked away in her Château, ever since that night.The night she became a Vampire.Now, though, her Creator - the Witch of the Wilds, as cruel as she is clever - has decided that Amélie is to sit in her sullen silence no longer. She hasfarbetter plans for the Vampire Countess.Better for her own interests, at least.Now Amélie is forced to confront her new existence as a Vampire, and all that it entails - and do her best not to succumb to it and lose all that she's fight so hard to gain.(A fairly dark-toned and prose-y exploration of world and character, crafted specially for Halloween! Inspired by a comic done by dinochoobs, linked at the beginning. With some pretty toxic relationships and a lot of grim subject matter, it's far more Sweeney Todd than Nightmare Before Christmas, let it be known beforehand - but there's some hope in there as well.)





	1. A1S1: Death, Life, and Will

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dinochoobs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dinochoobs/gifts).



> Hello, my dears - and a Happy Halloween to all of you. Have you come hoping for something bright, and cheerful, to lighten your dark October days? Well, I fear you won't find it here; however, if you're searching for something more grim, something darker and mayhaps even depraved at times, well, you just might be in the right place.
> 
> This story was based off of [this comic by dinochoobs](https://dinochoobs.tumblr.com/post/167644779144/dinochoobs-yes-hello-this-took-forever-i-was). I saw it, and was quite inspired to write it out as a short drabble - and once I set a foot down that path, well... I think this story will demonstrate quite clearly the danger of setting off down a path without proper consideration beforehand. Once I started, there were a lot of other ideas that whirled around it, and I thought the only appropriate thing to do would be to unleash them upon the world.
> 
> After all, isn't that what Halloween is about?
> 
> For those of you familiar with my other works, you'll probably find this one fairly different. It doesn't have the same optimism of most of mine, and certainly doesn't have the same level of care and compassion in the relationships depicted - a bit of an experiment, on my part, trying to show some more toxic relationships in a grimmer setting.
> 
> I daresay I succeeded in that venture, at the least.
> 
> A story in three Acts, this will follow the Vampiric protagonist Widowmaker (who, though the protagonist, may not quite fit the term _hero_ ) through a series of confrontations with her creator, Mercy, the Witch of the Wilds - as well as through her explorations of her new powers, ensnaring of unsuspecting prey, and dealings with the nearby village of humans. There will be blood, there will be death, there will be lust and hunger and cruelty; it will be grim, it will be vicious, it will be twisted and debauched at times.
> 
> Is it a hopeful story? Overall, perhaps, but only in the very long run - and would I say it ends _happily?_ Well, that very much depends on one's outlook. Certain characters get what they want, yes, but whether it's what is _best_ for them is a question very much left up to individual interpretation. The enduring message is, perhaps, "Be careful for what you wish, and careful _how_ , as well."
> 
> That's about as much as can be said without giving too much away, so if there's more you would know, all I can suggest is to scroll down and start reading.
> 
>  
> 
> Of course, do be forewarned, my dears - here, there be monsters.
> 
> J.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: A note worth mentioning - the Witch of the Wilds in this, though she may share a face and a secondary moniker (Mercy) with Angela Zeigler, is not even slightly the same person. She's not intended to be the same character in any way - she is purely the cruel and wicked Witch described in Reinhardt's tales and narrations regarding the Junkenstein's Revenge special event.

**ACT ONE: THE LONG FALL**

 

 

 

 

**Act One, Scene One: Death, Life, and Will**

 

\---

 

She sat at the head of the table.

As if it were _her_ place, but then it might as well have been now that her husband was dead and everyone else sent away from these halls.

As if it would gain her anything, but it was as good a place to sit as any other.

As if the dishes and plates set before her could provide any satiation, but no mortal meal could hope to assuage her appetite.

It was impossible. There was only one thing which could lessen her hunger, now.

She could still taste it, that dark and metallic flavour - the mere thought had her jaw clenching as she salivated and her every muscle tensed, her hands gripping tight at the tabletop. Her nails dug deeply into the wood, belying her greater-than-human strength.

For a long moment she sat like a statue, wound tight like a steel spring in clockwork, entirely fixated on the lingering memory of the taste of _blood._

She couldn’t get it out of her head. Not now.

Not ever.

Amélie Lacroix, they’d called her once - back when her husband, Gérard, had yet lived. He was the Count of this area and she had been his Countess, but now he was a dessicated corpse, and she?

Well, she was his murderer.

Her ears picked out no noise, no warning of anything before her eyes caught some some movement and glint in the shadows. She saw the _grin_ before she saw the Witch, the grin which reflected moonlight so easily with its devious and devilish glimmers.

“Why won’t you drink blood?”

She didn’t want to think about it, but it had been a long time since life had granted her what she wanted.

 

\---

 

_The night had been cold, and brutal in a way which seemed fitting only for something out of a tale. Harshly shrieking winds blew, chilling the Countess to the bone, but she cared not._

_The cold had never bothered her that much. Especially not when she was out on the hunt, her rifle at her back. A grin stayed fixed on her lips as her eyes, narrowed to slits, searched the woods for her prey. The horse panted under her as she kept it at a constant canter, occasionally shaking the reigns to urge it into a full gallop._

_Small twigs from the branches caught at her hair and scratched at her face, but she didn’t care. She’d seen the most gorgeous creature, and she needed it._

_It had been such an ordinary hunt up until she’d laid eyes on it - a gleaming white fox with a flawless pelt and sapphire-blue eyes, and she caught another tiny glimpse of it now as it bounded through the trees._

_With a gleeful shout, she tossed the reigns again and sent her harried horse galloping harder. She pulled out her rifle, swinging it around on its sling to a ready position, starting to track her quarry’s path._

_The ground gave way with a suddenness that shocked her - it left her not knowing in the first instant what had happened at all, as everything started to move, to shift. She fell with the horse under her, her long hair raising as gravity lost its meaning._

_A fall is a glorious and delightful thing, ruined only by the knowledge that it would end. That horrid sensation, the pit dropping out of one’s stomach - it’s not the fall that causes it, but a million years of genetic memory of the inevitability of what lays at the end of that vertical journey._

_The sudden stop at the bottom._

_Amélie hadn’t made a noise as she’d fallen, save for one slight gasp in the first instant - a last fleeting glimpse of that glorious creature bounding off along the branches of trees before she began to plummet into the ravine. The horse, on the other hand, whinnied and screamed in panic as its hooves churned air to no avail._

_When they hit the ground, there were many noises. Crunches and thumps, the horse’s loud outcry almost immediately silenced by its death, and leaving only Amélie to shriek in pain as the dark and cold world flashed bright and hot._

_For a while, it stayed that way. She saw only white, she heard only a high loud noise like a pealing bell. Eventually she recognized it as her own screaming, but by then it was starting to trail off anyway as the moon above dimmed._

_Everything hurt, unimaginably much, but she somehow found the strength to reach out for her rifle. Something to end the pain, at least, rather than wasting away on the forest floor at the bottom of a gulch like this._

_Something, though, knocked the weapon from her grip. Amélie had looked up to see the Witch, smiling over her._

_Their first introduction._

 

\---

 

Amélie forced her hands to relax. She was dishevelled at best, but long gone were the days when she’d cared for her appearance. The doors hadn’t opened in so long. Days had become weeks, and then longer.

Months.

Had it really been _months?_ She was sure that it had, at least, but that seemed so distended. So distant, so very long. Months since that night she'd fallen. Months since she’d been out in the sun. Months since the doors had opened.

Months since she’d _eaten._

“You’re not human anymore…”

The Witch never seemed to care for the doors. Open or closed, locked or free, she found her way in, always dropping by to taunt the former Countess further. Amélie glowered at the table in front of her, refusing to look up and see the Witch’s surely-smirking lips. She always showed up to taunt, to twist the knife, to make things worse.

It had been her fault to begin with, although Amélie couldn’t place _all_ of the blame on the Witch.

Much as she tried.

 

\---

 

 _“Oh, dear,” the Witch had murmured with concern heavy in her voice and across her face. “What a…_ terrible _fall, why, you couldn’t possibly survive that…”_

_Amélie had gasped weakly. The one who stood over her looked almost angelic, practically glowing, and her mind could scarcely make sense of it. The smile on her lips was so calm and kind, but in her eyes there lurked something else entirely._

_“I can help you,” the Witch had murmured softly, kneeling beside Amélie’s bloodied, battered, and gasping head, and holding it gently in her  hands. “Heal you, give you new life. You will be beyond this death, my dear, out of its clutches. It’s only a small price I ask in return.”_

_Amélie had barely been able to see the stranger's face at that point, her mind losing the ability to process thoughts, but she had a few._

_She’d lived her life, and fought for it, and refused to die now._

_She didn’t have that white fox’s hide on her wall yet._

_She would like to see Gérard again._

_Those were her only thoughts, she never thought about the cost. Wouldn’t have cared what it was anyway - what did she have to lose? She was dying._

_What life could possibly be worse than death?_

_She accepted it with desperation; with a wet gasp and weakly outstretched arms, she sought whatever future this stranger could give her._

_“Please. Yes.” With no knowledge of what it would entail, no concept of the price she would pay, the dying Amélie had accepted her fate._

_The Witch had smiled, and stood; she had taken her broom in hand and twirled it around, and with a burst of light and warmth, it had been done._

 

\---

 

The Witch stepped past the empty chairs - always empty now alongside the table, they had nobody else to serve. All the staff had been let go, her husband was dead, and now it was just her alone.

“You’re a vampire, Amélie.”

If she could have said it with less of a smile, it might have sounded less like an insult, or a slight or judgement. If the Witch could have said it with less smugness in her voice and her face, perhaps it wouldn’t have angered Amélie as much as it did.

That wasn’t the way of things, though.

Below the anger, however, burned something else - lodged there since the night she’d almost died in the forest chasing the white fox, the need to listen, to bend her knee and her ear to the Witch's whim.

It seemed impossible to openly deny her, though Amélie had tried in the past - tried to order her out of the house or bar her entry, but it never worked. Something stayed her hand or her voice every time. She was forced, it seemed, to put up with her tormentor.

The hidden price to her new life. Or, rather, _one_ of them.

The Witch came closer still, reaching out and picking up one of the useless knives with one hand. Useless because they never _saw_ use, not because they were incapable of it - they were still quite sharp knives, it had simply been months since they’d met any food.

Still quite sharp, as the Witch proved when she slit one of her fingertips open with a little gasp. Not one of pain, though. A gasp that was some mockery of surprise.

“I seem to have cut my finger,” she smirked, her eyes hooded but still predatory as Amélie found herself unable to look away - at first, from the Witch’s gaze, and then as the red began to well and drip from her fingertip, unable to look away from the growing drop of blood.

“I’m afraid it might get infected.” The Witch’s slight smirk became a wide and devious grin, dancing with dark delight and promise as it always did. She held out her hand as if to draw Amélie in, and it worked.

Sitting alone in her Château, it was hard enough to fight the hunger, but with fresh blood in sight and the scent of it in her nostrils it was practically impossible to hold it back. That hunger which had led her to kill her husband, to empty her house of its staff, to lock herself away from the world so that perhaps her curse might not spread its misery.

Her curse which had once seemed to be such a blessing.

 

\---

 

_“I- I-” Amélie’s words had come out choked and stuttered, very much as if her body was still broken and lying on the ground, but that was no longer the case. She stood freely, the agonizing shards of bone gone from her legs, her arms, her ribs; some blood remained, smeared on her skin or soaked into her clothes, but the wounds themselves had disappeared._

_“Oh, well_ that _simply won’t do,” the Witch had murmured softly - murmured and almost pouted as she raised a hand and waved it, and Amélie had been astonished when her clothes began to shift._

_They tightened and loosened, they shimmied around her as if they were woven not from threads of warp and weft, but rather of a thousand minuscule creatures, each with a mind of their own and under the Witch’s control._

_Holes in the fabric patched themselves, blood dried and shook itself loose and fell instead to the ground, and when it was all done her outfit was returned to its former splendor. It was, in fact, even a little more closely-tailored than it had been before - slight trimmings discarding themselves along with the blood - and fit her now as if it had grown just as her skin. Unnaturally well, to be sure._

_“The- you-” Amélie had patted at herself in confusion, sparing a sad glance down to her fallen and shattered horse, but at least it felt no pain any longer. Neither did she - no pain and no cold as she searched the Witch’s eyes. “Who are you? How have you done this -_ what _have you done?”_

_The Witch hadn’t answered immediately, she’d just met Amélie’s gaze and held it, and there was something in her eyes again which had unsettled the Countess. The Witch had raised a hand, cupping her cheek - the hand felt so warm against her skin, as if the Witch was free from the chill of the night. As if she was not subject to the storm._

_“So beautiful,” the Witch had murmured before smiling softly. “I have given you what I promised, my dear - life, a new life which is without limit. Such slight things as injury and time and death are beyond you now, my dear.”_

_Amélie wasn’t sure how she felt about that small constant repetition, that moniker - wasn’t sure she appreciated being called_ dear _by someone with whom she was unfamiliar, and was quite sure she did not appreciate being called_ ‘mine’ _by someone she had just met, but she didn’t want to seem ungracious. Impolite. Crass._

_“What is your name?” She reiterated the question, leaning slightly into the Witch’s warm touch without a thought toward it. “So that I may know who to thank.”_

_The Witch had laughed, lightly, patting her on the cheek. “They call me… Mercy. And you will have plenty of time to know me, my dear - and_ plenty _of opportunity to give me your thanks. You will be seeing me again, but for now,” she’d hummed softly, “why, you’d best be getting home. Wouldn’t want the Count getting too worried, would we?”_

_Amélie had turned away, kneeling to pick up her rifle, but she whirled at the Witch’s new words. “So you do know who I am-”_

_She was gone. The Witch was gone, entirely, without a sound or a trace - disappeared into the woods._

_It would seem that she had known who Amélie was, though, and as a result the Countess only found herself wondering all the more just who this strange woman had been. Who she had been and what she might want, this woman who they called ‘Mercy’._

_She never thought to wonder_ why _they called her that. Never suspected that the Witch might have named herself after that thing for which people begged her the most._

_Mercy._

 

\---

 

A drip of blood seeped out, slowly, and hung ponderously from the tip of the Witch’s finger. Beyond it, Amélie could see that smirking grin wide, teeth glinting in the moonlight. She wanted - she _wanted_ it so much, that blood, her mouth filling with saliva in anticipation and forcing her to swallow heavily as her stomach churned in her.

Her own blood was so very cold, so very slow, but this thinned it and fired it and sent it rushing through her veins; she was so very _hungry_ because it had been months since she’d fed for the last time.

For the first time.

“Lick it for me.”

Amélie’s everything shuddered, her back and her hands and her parted lips as she tried to hold herself back from it but she could feel herself leaning in further. Closer to the Witch, closer to the finger, closer to the _blood._

It had been so long since she’d fed.

 

\---

 

_It had taken her almost a day to return home by foot, and it was the following evening when she had finally found her door in front of her again. The journey had passed in a blur of lightheadedness, the clouds never clearing from the sun, and the servants had sent up the call immediately upon her arrival. She’d been ushered in, and there had been Gérard, looking quite distraught._

_“Amélie! My love, you-” he had spoken in that same familiar voice, that same softly-accented French he’d always had, and she wasn’t sure what had driven her to expect anything else. Of course he would be the same._

_Just because_ she _had changed, didn’t mean_ he _had._

_“You’ve been gone for two days,” he’d taken her hands, intent on ushering her into the house but immediately stalling, frowning, looking down at her hands in his. “Your… hands. They’re so cold - my dear, what has happened to you?” His eyes rose to meet hers again. “Where is the horse?”_

_My dear. He called her that the same as the Witch had, and she didn’t mind when he did it. It brought a slight smile to her lips, though it faded at the horse’s mention. “It- it fell,” she explained. “I was forced to return on foot, I-”_

_“It’s alright,” he assured her, squeezing at her hands, and his skin felt so warm. She could feel the lifeblood pumping beneath it, and it sped her heart up - a heart which had been slowed since her death, it seemed. “You’re back now, you’re safe. We can get you a new horse. Come, you are so cold - warm yourself, my dear, I will have dinner prepared!”_

_She’d nodded, she’d followed him in and sat down by the fireside as it was stoked to roaring hot, but no fire could warm her now. She’d stared at her own hands, willing them to be less pale and sallow than they were, as if she’d been in the cold for hours._

_Which, of course, she had, but the tint did not lessen as the fire crackled in its hearth. An hour later when dinner was called, her skin held exactly that same pallor._

_“Are you… feeling well, Amélie?” Gérard’s voice had held such concern as he sat across the table from her. “You do not look it. I’ll call for the doctor - he’ll be here in the morning, I promise it.”_

_Amélie had only nodded emptily, stirring at her food idly with a fork. The plate was still very full, as were the others beside it - so much food, but none of it palatable in the slightest. Every mouthful tasted like dirt, like ash on her lips, and she hated it but she did not understand._

_“Of course,” she murmured, glancing up across the table. The fires would not warm her, the food would not sate her, both of them left her feeling only bitter and irritated - she’d been so looking forward to returning home, but now that she was here there seemed to be only one positive thing about it._

_The only thing which looked good, the only thing which seemed to carry any urge or desire to it, was him._

_“I tire of dinner,” she’d stated plainly, “and of fires to warm me. There are far better ways…”_

_A slightly stunned expression on his face had quickly given way to a soft smile as he set down his fork, gesturing for the serving staff to remove the plates and uneaten food - he stood and stepped away, around the table to take her hand, and the whole time their eyes stayed locked on each other._

_She felt something stirring deep inside herself at his approach, a grin growing on her lips - finally, this was what she was looking for. Finally she felt as if she was lifting from her trance. Her blood felt warmer with him close, her heart faster - he was what she wanted._

_They’d fled up the staircase to their room, buttons undoing or outright tearing loose but they didn’t care which. Broken ones would be replaced later, and their laughs and soft moans echoed off of the stones as wandering hands and lips tugged at clothing, at hair, at earlobes._

_She had always wanted him, always found him desirable, and vice versa. This, though, was something else. At first she thought it was her brush with death driving her passions higher - as she tore his shirt off and he tossed her back onto the bed where she writhed for a moment in anticipation, watching him approach._

_That made sense at first, that she’d expected not to return home. Not to see him again. Colour returned to her cheeks as he kissed at her neck, at her collarbone, down across her breast - her fingernails dragged lightly down his back and pulled a hissed sigh from his lips._

_One of her hands found his hair, when one of his slipped between her legs and began to tease her. She held him right in front of her, their eyes burning into each other as each of their foreheads rested on the other._

_Amélie panted and gasped, moaned and cried out inches away from his parted lips and he drank in every noise as sustenance until she was calling out his name, until her fingers tightened painfully in his hair, until her nails dug into his back._

_Very hard, as it turned out - he let out a stifled cry and flinched slightly as his skin was pierced by her nails, but he hardly cared. A military man of sorts, Gérard was more than used to pain and more than capable of tolerating it. It came as a slight surprise but no real issue._

_The larger surprise arrived a moment later when Amélie’s eyes, closed in passion, snapped open and fixated on his. That scent in her nostrils - it sent her head whirling, something deep inside of her writhing needfully. She slid her slightly-bloodied hand down to the small of his back, pulling him forward; she threw her head back with a wanton and lustful growl as he slid inside of her, and then she pulled his head off to the side and buried her mouth in the crook of his neck._

_It was the most satisfying experience she had ever had, the lingering remnants of her orgasm a moment ago reigniting like coals with liquor poured atop as Gérard’s hips snapped against hers and her fingers and her teeth tightened._

_She didn’t even taste the blood at first._

_Not at first._

_She screamed into his flesh as her passion overtook her again, a sharp and tumultuous climax making her shudder roughly, and that was when she first noticed. The scream came out as if from underwater, bubbly, and she withdrew in surprise._

_Blood gushed from the wound in his neck, pouring in rivulets over his chest - his look of lust and elation was quickly overtaken by one of surprise as he saw the glistening dark red painted all over her lips, her chin, her teeth._

_Her strangely elongated and pointed teeth._

_Then, with an inhuman cry of lust, she leapt forward again - tackled him back to the ground and bit him once more on the other side, her hips grinding down against him. His nails dug into her thighs, her back, he pulled at her hair, and she loved it all._

_It was the most satisfying experience of her life, the best sex by far that they’d ever had - and the bar had been quite high to begin with._

_...and when it was done, when she finally felt like she could stand to be still, when orgasm after orgasm had tired her and when hastily gulped mouthfuls of blood had finally managed to sate her lust, she was panting on the floor beside him and he was cold and still and pale._

_Quite dead._

_She curled up beside him, wrapping a leg across his belly, and began to weep for what she’d lost._

 

_\---_

 

The Witch’s blood…

...tasted different.

A tear leapt to Amélie’s eye the instant she tasted it on the tip of her tongue, the moment that she gave in once more to that desire for blood - she shivered as her eyes tried to roll back in her head, her lips sealing tightly around the Witch’s finger as she suckled like a goat at its mother’s teat. Then, with a groan as her hunger was let loose of its cage, she grabbed on with one hand and sucked like a whore trying to earn her pay.

“Careful,” the Witch laughed, lightly, as she pressed a fingertip from the other hand against the Countess’ forehead. Whimpering, Amélie found herself powerless to resist the force - though it was slight, only the smallest pressure on her head, she could not remain in place when the Witch pushed her back. She withdrew, her tongue stretching out in a ludicrous display to try to regain that taste, to draw from that glorious well once again.

“Have you figured it out yet?” The Witch’s grin reached previously uncharted heights as she leaned in across the table.

Amélie’s gaze flicked from the grin, to the bloodied digit, to the Witch’s fitted outfit, and back again. Her mind was a frenzy unable of producing words, incapable of sustaining thought; all she knew was need, all she felt was lust, hunger, in any and every form.

Mercy, the Witch, reached out and cupped Amélie’s cheek gently. She stroked a thumb across the Countess’ lips, barely smeared with blood - she giggled softly when Amélie’s tongue flicked out to chase away those remnants.

“So _beautiful,”_ she murmured softly, “that’s why I had to have you. That’s why I had to lure you with that fox - I knew you would be unable to resist. As surely as you are now.” Then she withdrew with a laugh. “Or at least, _almost_ as surely.”

Amélie blinked, at first in shock at the blood being removed and then in anger at the Witch’s words. _She_ had sent that fox? The creature that took the Countess’ life and resigned her to this cursed fate?

She leapt from her chair with a snarl, her speed easily exceeding any human’s, but the Witch just laughed and pointed at the ground. _“Kneel,_ ” she commanded, and Amélie did.

She didn’t want to. Desperately tried _not_ to, in fact, but she still did.

 _“Now_ have you figured it out?” Mercy laughed again, shaking her head. “Oh, my dear - my dear Amélie-”

“Don’t call me that,” the Countess spat, unable to lift her knees from the ground.

Mercy’s eyes narrowed, her smile thinning until it was as cruelly sharp as any thief’s dagger. _“Quiet._ I will call you what I like, I will _do_ with you as I like - you are mine _,_ _my dear.”_

Amélie tried to deny it, tried to shout out otherwise, but could not part her lips to do so.

The Witch’s grin widened as she stepped closer but didn’t lower at all - she looked down sharply at Amélie glaring up at her. “So beautiful,” she murmured, “but not very bright, are you?” She giggled at the flare of anger in those golden eyes. “Oh yes, I sent the thing which led you to your death - but don’t you see? The… _beauty_ of the irony of it?”

With a smile, Mercy reached down and stroked at her cheek again. “You could not resist it. The moment you laid eyes upon that white fox, you needed it for your own, even to your own death - as you were for me, my dear. Desirable to the point of need, even to the point of death. Now, sadly,” she tipped her head to the side, “you failed in your quest, but I? I did not. I attained you, my prize, my dear, and now you are mine. The servant _cannot_ deny the Mistress - do you understand? You may respond.”

Amélie’s eyes welled, every muscle straining to stand but unable to bring it into being. Her mouth opened, her lips parted to speak and her ribs heaved as they tried to hurl out insults, but it was not to be. The only words that left her mouth were, “Yes, Mistress.”

The Witch’s grin was so sharp it could have sliced through the hardest stone with ease, her gaze burning down at her servant, her creation, her possession. “Good,” she barely whispered, and then knelt suddenly. She grabbed Amélie’s hair and pulled her hair back, and buried her tongue in the Countess’ mouth as she moaned.

“I can still taste my blood on your lips,” Mercy hissed into Amélie’s ear as the latter whimpered, “but that’s not what I _want_ to taste. Kneel. Watch. Play with yourself.”

Then, the Witch withdrew and stepped away, and slowly began to undress. She savoured the hateful and lustful look in the Countess’ eyes, the way one hand found its way down the front of her pants and began to move in slow, deliberate motions.

“Do you want more blood?” Mercy trailed her fingertips over her bare self, teasing the kneeling woman.

“Yes Mistress,” Amélie gasped in reply.

“Then open wide.” The Witch’s eyes narrowed, her laugh soft and lilting as she stepped forward, straddling the kneeling woman. “No teeth. Do a good job, and I _might_ give you another taste of blood. And do feel free to speak up. I’d like to hear you, I think. For now.”

Amélie whimpered as skin met her lips, soft and warm and slick - her tongue flicked out instinctively, lapping up every taste it could of the Witch’s wetness. Fingers closed tightly in her hair, pulling her head sharply upward in between Mercy’s thighs, and if she focused - if she _concentrated -_ she could _feel_ the Witch’s blood flowing through her.

The thought sent her over the edge, her back arching as an orgasm overtook her, but she was unable to lift her knees from the ground and her head was held too tightly in place to move it either, so she was left to simply writhe.

She didn’t get another taste of blood.

The Witch ground Amélie’s face against her for half a dozen groaned and moaned expulsions of ecstasy, then pushed her back and stepped away with a laugh. “Mmm, a decent showing, I suppose,” she murmured, “but you will need to do better than that, my dear. Nothing to drink for you.”

“I- I-” Amélie stammered, her mind and blood running wild with hunger-lust, “ _please!_ I’m s-so hungry!” She was still unable to rise, her knees pinned to the floor by the Witch’s spoken will.

The Witch, who laughed, waving a hand and returning every piece of her clothing to herself at once. “And? It’s hardly _my_ concern, my dear - oh,” she sighed, turning back and crouching in front of Amélie’s shivering form.

She cupped the Countess’ cheek once more, the action quickly becoming a common gesture, and shook her head softly. “Don’t you see, my dear? I didn’t give you this gift so you could squander it away in silence and darkness here - that is why I’ve been prodding you along all these months, but I’ve grown tired of that game now. If I wanted a pet who I needed to feed and walk constantly, you would have a leash and collar; now, there are thousands nearby who can sate your desires. _Rise_ , my dear - embrace what you are now.”

As Amélie stood, finally able to do so, the Witch stood with her. She pressed a kiss to Amélie’s lips, not a hungry or harsh one but rather one which was soft, tender, almost caring. Mercy smiled as she withdrew and opened her eyes, still cupping the Vampire’s cheek. “Embrace my gift.”

Then, she was gone. In an instant, not in a flash, no light or sound to indicate her departure - she simply was no longer there. The ghost of her warmth remained for just a few seconds on Amélie’s cheek.

Just a few seconds before she leapt through the open window without a thought toward _when_ it had been opened, without a thought of anger or frustration, without a thought of anything other than her hunger.

The Witch always had dropped by to torment her, but that night ended up being more than simply that. Not just a torment of the present, not just taunting, but raising Amélie’s past as a weapon and using it to cut away at what little restraint she had left.

After that, she was unable to deny her desires. The Witch’s desires. Unable, or unwilling - it meant the same to her as she took to the night to feed and feast on the citizens there.

The Château shone behind her in the moonlight, emptier than it had been in months, but hardly by much.

Only one single person less.


	2. A1S2: Hunger

**Act One, Scene Two: Hunger**

 

\---

 

It wasn’t even hard.

That was almost a shame. Almost. If she hadn’t been so hungry, if she’d been interested in the hunt and the chase rather than the feeding, it would have been a shame how easy prey was to locate.

She wasn’t, though. Wasn’t interested in the hunt, nor the chase, nor laying traps and following tracks - had no interests and no desires, no guiding force save for the nigh-on catastrophic hunger which had been building over the course of months or however long, now let loose by the Witch.

As Amélie herself had been let loose, as well.

She found a hunting party first, a man and son in the forest with a single bow and a half-dozen arrows between them; she heard them before she saw them, their clumsy footfalls snapping twigs and disturbing underbrush, and it infuriated her.

They had no rights to be out here, on her land: poachers, that’s what they were, and they didn’t even have the decency to do it subtly. Poachers and poor hunters as well, with their heavy breaths and loud heartbeats; it was a wonder they hadn’t woken the entire forest.

Such loud heartbeats, practically deafening in her ears as she leapt effortlessly and thoughtlessly up into a tree to look down upon the two. So very loud, and they thought they would catch any prey like that?

No, she would show them how to acquire one’s quarry.

The first of the two, the father, didn’t even have time to scream as she fell upon him, her teeth finding his neck like a moth finding a flame. It was hardly the manner in which she was accustomed to hunting, but it was perhaps not so different from an arrow or a bullet. Line up, wait for the perfect moment, and release.

It was, though. It was different - it was  _ better _ , so much better as his hot and metallic, almost buttery-tasting blood filled her mouth and she groaned, growled with hunger and lust as she shoved him down against the ground and kept drawing, and draining, and drinking.

The taste soaked into her every pore, firing her blood and lighting her nerves like a chorus of stars in the night; she felt his last flickery heartbeat and it sent a shudder of pleasure through her as the wave of sensations brought with it goosebumps flowing quickly up her arms, her neck, her scalp. It took only seconds, but they were some of the best seconds she could recall.

Her eyes snapped open as she heard a scream. This one was dead, and she had no interest in carrion - she was not some  _ scavenger _ here to eat what rotting meat had been left on the forest floor by true predators, no, she was a  _ huntress. _

There was yet one other beating heart in the clearing.

The boy was not even very quick, slim and gawkish with his eyes wide as she looked up, and he went limp the instant she grabbed him by the shoulders and slammed him back against the tree. Despite his generally unimpressive outward physicality, though, his blood was fast and hot and sharp, leaving a tang on her lips that lingered even as she dropped him to slump to the ground. A tang on her lips that remained and dripped from her grin in the moonlight as she cocked her head to the side, listening to what the forest had to tell her.

Silence. Underbrush rustling, somewhere, but that was no concern of hers. She was not on the hunt for deer, not tonight.

A chorus of twigs snapping, somewhere distant, and she doubted many deer would be so careless - then, a few moments later, a laugh and a splash.

Amélie’s tongue lashed out, chasing up every remnant of blood on her lips as she caught a drip from her chin on her thumb. It glistened gorgeously in the moonlight shafting through the leaves, and she found herself wondering why she’d ever held back from this.

There certainly seemed no point anymore.

 

\---

 

There were three of them, laughing and splashing in a small lake in the low hills. Their clothing lay in crumpled piles on the banks, but Amélie’s eyes didn’t even flick down to it as she glared out at them. Two women and a man, cavorting and shouting and occasionally cutting each other’s exultations off with their mouths clashing and hands catching at each other’s hair, at least as much as they were able whilst swimming in the water.

She could hear their heartbeats from here. Even overtop of their splashes, even overtop of their shouts or their laughter, she could hear them.

So  _ loud. _

The sound of their hearts echoed in her head like church bells in a steeple, and the echoes pulsed through the rest of her as well. Through her tensed muscles and her churning gut and through that deep pit of hunger in her, and with every beat and every pulse it redoubled.

The water split easily around her and she cut through it like a river pike, and her teeth flashed just like the scales of the same. The other fish in the water gave her a wide berth accordingly, flicking away into little hiding-holes, and she saw the glitter of their scales and heard the swish of their tails but gave them no attention.

She was no fishmonger. She was a  _ huntress, _ and she’d spotted her prey.

There was a moment, though - a moment familiar to her, as she paused and looked up at them silhouetted in the moonlight...

That moment when a deer raises its head from the river and the huntress watching it stops moving, stops breathing, stops  _ everything _ and, for a moment, simply looks. That moment where one is caught between the realization that this prey is a living breathing thing just like oneself, and the worry that one might be caught by the prey before the hunt is complete.

Amélie had no concern over the latter, though, as she was so far beneath the water - and she had no concern for the former, nor had she ever. Yes, the deer lived, and breathed, and they died and were fed upon. Such was the nature of things. She suspected that even now the scavengers of the forest were moving in on the two she’d left dead in the clearing, and the forest would feed well tonight as the lake would on these once she was done with them.

Life led to death. It always did, it was the natural order of things. Even if she left these three alive, they would still die.

...and she would be ever so  _ hungry. _

There was a moment of stillness, though; a moment yet where she just crouched near the lake bed and looked up at the three treading water above her, their arms silhouetted in the moonlight and seeking each other, the three shapes drawing closer together as silt and muck slowly rose up around Amélie’s body.

It rose higher and started to cloud her vision, started to cut her off from the shimmering moonlight and the world, and with a garbled bubbly snarl she launched herself upward through the sludge and toward the water’s surface.

She took the one from the middle, first - one of the women, yanked down by an ankle and drained, and Amélie was unsure whether it was the night’s passionate activities or the wine she’d smelled on their clothes at the lake’s edge, but for whatever reason, the woman’s blood was particularly delicious. It was soft, subtle like a red wine and as rich as one as well.

A foot lashed out as the other two began to churn the water in fear, and Amélie caught it and pulled, bringing the man down below the waves as she cast the first one off to drift away with small bubbles still rising slowly from its statue-like face. The man’s blood had a hint of something else to it, almost as a spice; it was like a thin gravy, and so delicious that Amélie could not even bring herself to lament having nothing over which to pour it.

The screams of the third were quite muffled and distorted by the water, at first because the voice producing them was above the surface and she was below, but then because the voice was below as well and it had never been designed to make sounds underwater. Bubbles rose out in a torrent, a torrent through which Amélie thrust her head to catch the last woman’s neck.

More like a white wine, oddly. Sweet with somewhat floral, fruity hints.

She wasn’t sure why she’d ever held back, as the flavours of the three mixed on her palate and her growling stomach delighted in the meals it was being granted. It had been foolish, truly, to deny herself.

Without another thought, she pushed the third body down into the water and it carried on along its way, all the air emptied from its lungs by its last frenzied attempts, but there was no frenzy to it anymore. No struggle anymore.

Calmly, it floated down toward the lake bed, and all the little hiding fishes came out after a moment to surround it with cautious nibbles at first, and then hesitant bites, and then ravenous abandon. Amélie saw them, she let herself drift below the water and watched them, those fish, and found that she could not disagree.

She was done with her nibbling as well.

The lake’s surface was as smooth as any mirror when Amélie’s head broke it near the bank, and she walked up out and into the forest once more.

She was still hungry.

She could hear more hearts.

 

\---

 

Some compulsion drove her to return home, back to the Château as the blackness of night started to glow with the first hints of dawn. She found her footfalls through the forest to be incredibly fast, and could only think back on that first day.

It had taken her so long to return home to Gérard. A day, or perhaps more; why now was she so swift?

The only explanation was that this was some upside of the Witch’s gift, some benefit for which she was paying the price. Speed, strength, senses - much seemed greater than it had, as the hunts of the preceding hours had quite clearly shown. Her hunger though, thankfully, was not amongst those things which had been heightened. It had indeed lessened, sated by the night’s feedings.

There had been so many.

As Amélie closed the door behind her, she frowned slightly. The fog of hunger and lust and anger started to lift from her mind, and she found herself unable to recall even how many she’d actually fed upon.

The two in the clearing, then the three in the lake, and then one who was on her own in the woods, some elderly woman gathering mushrooms, and then there had been a man on horseback - the horse had whinnied in terror until she’d slashed its neck out - and then...

“Hungry, were we?”

She spun around, and shouldn’t have been surprised to see the Witch standing there. Amélie’s mouth worked soundlessly at first, surprise overtaking her ability to speak, but then she swallowed and composed herself and tried again. “I thought you had obligations elsewhere.”

The Witch laughed, bright and high and almost mocking. “Oh, my  _ dear, _ no! No, I have no obligations - you will find that it is  _ you _ who is obligated.”

Amélie’s lips had tugged back at that, a soft snarl which she swiftly suppressed. It would do no good. Even were she to leap at the Witch again, she would simply be commanded to the floor once more.

The Countess looked away, to hide her ire - looked down instead to her blood-and-water-soaked clothes which further curled her lip in distaste. She’d been disheveled to begin the night, and now?

Now, she was bedraggled at best; soaked and tattered and stained, her clothing. Far beyond saving, certainly. It had been forever tainted and, indeed, destroyed by the activities of the night. 

There came a point after which things were simply not worth trying to repair.

Without looking up, she addressed the Witch. “I have fed. Are you now satisfied?”

_ “I? _ Satisfied?”

The Witch approached - Amélie could not hear a footstep of hers, but she was somehow aware of Mercy’s approach all the same. Some wave of warmth that moved with her, some aura that she felt like a slight vibration under her skin.

_ Hunger. _

She could hear Mercy’s heartbeat, and the memory of the taste of her blood - the potency of a Witch - had her salivating again.

“It is not  _ I _ who stands to be satisfied, my dear,” the Witch murmured, lifting Amélie’s chin with a fingertip and staring unblinking into her eyes. “I was not the hungry one, was I?”

The first attempt at an answer died on her lips as her stomach twisted, and Amélie suppressed a wince before shaking her head softly, not breaking eye contact with Mercy. “You were not. I was. I was so hungry.”

“Well of  _ course _ you were, my dear,” Mercy murmured, her fingertip stroking back up Amélie’s chin and jaw, her hand shifting and raising to cup the Countess’ cheek. “You hadn’t eaten for months, what else did you expect?”

“Foolish of me,” Amélie muttered darkly, distastefully, the words bitter in her mouth and making her lips curl as the Witch chuckled.

“Yes, very foolish indeed, but you’ve learned better now, haven’t you?” Her fingertips plucked a sodden leaf from Amélie’s soaked hair and tossed it thoughtlessly off to the side. “Now, you have fed - and you are quite the mess as well, but that’s nothing a nice bath couldn’t change - the question, my dear, is not whether  _ I _ am satisfied. It is whether  _ you _ are.”

Amélie’s eyes, which had slid closed at some point without her noticing, flew open now and she locked her gaze on Mercy’s again. Was she satisfied? Yes, she was - of  _ course _ she was, she’d drank so many and fed so deeply, how could she not be?

Was she satisfied? She’d gone from an unthinking mess of hunger to being coated and soaked in blood - in bits of food from swiftly eaten meals, and the Witch was right, she  _ was _ quite a mess. Far too much so for her own liking, in fact, but that wasn’t the question.

Was she  _ satisfied? _

She had been.  _ Had _ been. Past tense.

Until she’d returned home.

Until she’d felt the warmth of the Witch’s touch again, and only then realized how bereft of the same the night had been; until she’d heard the Witch’s pulse and recalled the taste of her blood, and only then realized how lacking every other scrap she’d eaten that night had been. Like a child’s sweet snack, enjoyable in the moment but hardly filling in the long term.

Was she satisfied?

“I- I was.” Her words were soft, and unintentionally hesitant - uncommonly hesitant, as her eyes flickered around Mercy’s face from so close, seeing the tug of a smirk at the corner of her lips, the look in her eyes. Amélie unconsciously leaned into the Witch’s hand on her cheek, just a little bit more. “I was, until I returned here to you, and now…”

Her words trailed away, off into a sigh as her stomach twisted inside her, her hunger flaring like a campfire with a new dry log thrown on top. With it came frustration and anger - she was supposed to be  _ sated _ after a meal like that, rather than groveling for more from the Witch like a dog. From the Witch of all people, who always showed up to taunt her, and Amélie had no other expectation than even more taunting.

“And now…” the Witch picked up her words, leaning in closer until her lips and her breath tickled at Amélie’s earlobe, just for a second before her teeth lightly caught it and Amélie had to clamp her lips together to stifle a moan, leaning into the gesture even as deep-seated reflexes tried to pull her away. “Now, you want more?”

“Now I want more, I want  _ you,” _ Amélie hissed, eyes screwed shut as she prepared herself for the inevitable denial and the undeniable refusal of the Witch. She couldn’t disobey, she knew that now - whatever the Witch ordered, she must do, and the Witch seemed to delight in taunting her and teasing her.

That was not to be the way of things, though.

Mercy withdrew, at first, and Amélie was sure it would be to huff a haughty laugh and leave, and say once more that Amélie’s hunger was none of her concern, but it wasn’t so - Amélie opened her eyes to see the Witch smiling softly, studying her with those intense hooded eyes.

“Greedy, my dear,” she chuckled softly, “but luckily for you, I am gracious and generous. We’d best get to the bath chambers.”

With a snap of her fingers and without an intermediary moment, they were there. Amélie opened her mouth to mention that none of it would operate: the fires were not lit or stoked in the basement, the boilers sat cold atop them, the pipes between had not carried a drop of water since the night of Gérard’s death. The baths could not be filled.

The reminder of Gérard, of the life she’d once had and lost - lost, as she now knew, because the Witch had  _ taken _ it - had her feeling angry and bitter again, but she knew she could do nothing about it. Her defeat earlier that night still hung heavily around her neck like the yoke of an ox, and she could do nothing but accept the tugs on the reins.

It would seem, as well, that the Witch had little concern for what could or could not happen, what could or could not be done - as she raised a hand and waved it once more, the sconces on the walls flared to life and water began to pour from the spigots, steaming in the early-morning air. 

The wide window that covered almost an entire wall darkened, shutting out the first hints of sunrise, and it was only after it did so that Amélie realized how much it had been hurting her eyes.

The Witch stepped past her, bare again, with the torchlight flickering and shimmering over her soft skin, and Amélie’s eyes tracked her as intently as any deer or any hare she’d ever laid eyes upon. That softness, gorgeous; for a moment, she almost felt like she could have been looking at that snow-white fox once more, bounding through the night.

For a moment, she almost felt like she could have been looking at Gérard.

“Well?” The Witch’s words drew her away from her thoughts, as Mercy took a seat at the side of the bath, her legs crossed in front of her as she leaned over and swirled a finger through the water. “Are you not getting in? You really do need the bath, my dear.”

Amélie only nodded, shucking off her wet clothing as quickly as possible and stepping forward into the steaming water. She sank in with a sigh, expecting the water to be hot and delightful, but the sigh swiftly shifted to a scowl as she realized that water, like fire, held no warmth for her anymore.

“Clean up now.”

Without looking over, Amélie pulled over the tray of soaps and oils, wiping remnants of blood from her skin and hair, combing leaves and twigs out of her hair, thoughtlessly carrying out all the little bodily maintenance tasks she’d learned over years and years of life, as her thoughts swirled darkly around how she’d lost it all. All of her life, all of the joy of it.

A thumb stroked over her cheek, wiping away some bit of dirt she’d missed, and even though the water felt no warmer than the lake had, that touch did. That touch of the Witch’s hand felt warm and full - even if it was the Witch who had robbed the warmth from the rest of it, Amélie didn’t care about that at the moment.

Softly, she caught Mercy’s hand, her hold soft enough that it could easily be pulled away from but firm enough to make her intentions clear as her eyes sought out the Witch’s again. “Join me. Please? I am still unsatisfied.”

With a grin as wide as any, the Witch slipped off of the tiles and into the water, and already it felt warmer. Amélie sighed softly as the Witch came nearer in the water, their bodies pressing together, and there it was - there was that warmth and that satisfaction she had been looking for, even as some deep reflex tried to pull away or lash out.

She knew she couldn’t, anyway, could not flee. She may not have had a leash or a collar, but she was a kept hound all the same.

Mercy’s lips felt like fire on her collarbone, but after so long in the cold it was a marvellous change of pace and Amélie’s hand rose to twist into blonde hair that shrugged off the water’s effects and never wettened.

“Thank you,” she whispered thoughtlessly. “Thank you, Mistress.”

“Don’t you see how much better things are now, my dear?” The words murmured against Amélie’s neck as she slid a hand up the inside of Mercy’s thigh. “Don’t you see how much better things are when you don’t fight? When you embrace what you are? When you embrace  _ me?” _

“Embrace you,” Amélie agreed softly, her stomach growling in hunger as she sucked a mark into Mercy’s neck, one of the Witch’s hands stroking up her ribs and tracing every curve as the other met the crux of Amélie’s legs and her fingers began to tease.

She still remembered it all, that the Witch was the one who had  _ given _ her this hunger, but it was also the Witch who could sate it.

Amélie did remember, she remembered it all - she remembered Gérard and her horse, and herself, and she remembered every taunt the Witch had leveled her way in the time since, and she remembered how it had all come to a head earlier that night. She remembered the hunts and the feedings.

“Embrace your  _ gifts,” _ Amélie growled softly as Mercy gasped at her touch, and one hunger joined another in the Countess’ gut at the look of those wide eyes and the sound of the Witch’s racing heart. Her mouth found Mercy’s neck, the Witch’s fingers twisting tightly into her long soaked hair as Amélie slipped two fingers in between Mercy’s legs and began to time her strokes to her heartbeats.

To the Witch’s heartbeats, of course. It would have been bordering on rude to time them to her own.

Even her lethargic heart, though, did pick up as the Witch began to squirm and shiver against her; the water became warmer and warmer, eventually becoming almost unbearably hot as Amélie could only hear heartbeats coming faster and faster, as a tight grip pulled her head back to let the Witch’s tongue plunge into her mouth again, Mercy straddling her on one of the bath’s seats.

She rose up out of the water like a monument, like a marble statue from the waves yet somehow untouched by the water; not a drop of wetness slid from her shoulders or her breasts, not a drip slipped down her ribs as she shifted her hips and ground herself down against Amélie’s swiftly-working hand.

The Countess caught a nipple between her teeth, growling at the delighted yelp she heard in response and shoving a hand between her own legs as well, burying a pair of fingers in herself in an attempt to sate  _ one _ of her hungers at least as the Witch’s shouts heralded another orgasm.

Mercy grabbed a double handful of Amélie’s hair, pulling her head sharply in for a deep kiss, tongues swirling as the Countess’ hands continued to work frantically. The Witch rolled her hips again, and again, sending up waves that lapped over the sides of the tub and spilled out over the tiles, but neither of them had any care for that.

“Bite me,” Mercy hissed through clenched teeth as her motions started to lose some of their fluidity; as the buildup of tension and ecstasy started to interfere once more with her self-control. “Bite me, my dear.”

Amélie didn’t give it a second thought. Even had she been able to, she wouldn’t have. Her teeth plunged into the Witch’s neck as her fingers plunged into both of their nethers, and both of them were flung over the edge simultaneously; Mercy screeching and digging nails into Amélie’s shoulders and pressing down against her hand hard enough to still its motions.

Meanwhile, a mouthful of hot, delicious blood - so potent and so pure, Mercy’s blood - and an earful of ecstasy as well, drove Amélie to an orgasm of her own, growled expulsions of bodily delight bubbling blood against the Witch’s neck as she gulped and gulped as swiftly as she was able.

Only for another few moments, though. Another few moments as the Witch sat on her lap, twitching her hips and holding Amélie’s head in tight against her neck, shivering and hissing out Amélie’s name again and again as she rode out the long wave of delight as much as she could and the Countess followed suit, drinking and driving her fingers even more, through a second climax and a third, and a fourth.

The Witch sighed heavily, shifting to stand and Amélie was powerless to resist, even though she longed for more of that sweet blood. Her hands rose from the water, outstretched and beseeching, but the Witch didn’t leave. She only stood up, shook herself slightly with a laugh, and then slipped forward into Amélie’s awaiting embrace.

“Mmmmm, my dear,” Mercy murmured as Amélie’s arms wrapped around her. “This is much better, isn’t it? So much better than it had been.”

“Yes,” the Countess sighed softly in response, hating that she knew it was true; hating that she could not lie to the Witch, and only hoping that she might mean it was only better than the past few months had been, and  _ not _ better than the rest of her life with Gérard.

She simply didn’t know, though, how far the Witch’s powers stretched. “Yes, much better. Will you be staying?”

The Witch laughed, shaking her head, and Amélie was upset by that idea; by the thought that she might be denied that glorious blood again, that warmth, all of it.

“I will be  _ returning _ ,” Mercy kissed at one cheek as she stroked idly at the other one. “Don’t fret, my dear. You’ll never be without me for long.”

Amélie’s eyes strained at the ceiling, the intricately inlaid tile which Gérard had commissioned just for her, for her birthday, bringing her favourite mosaic artist in from out of the country to render the beautiful scene of woodlands and sunrise and flowers.

It had taken weeks, weeks she’d needed to ride to town and use the public baths to avoid spoiling the surprise for herself but she hadn’t minded in the slightest - there had been pleasant enough conversation there, and the eventual surprise had been more than delightful enough to make up for the inconvenience of the travel time and all the rest.

This had been their house, their home.

Not just the place they lived, but  _ theirs -  _  ancestrally, hers, but they had taken it and made it their own instead, had changed it and turned it into a creation of their own, and she had killed him in it.

Because of her. The Witch.

She would never be without the Witch for long. She wished it could have seemed worse than it did; wished it had felt like a punishment rather than a blessing in that moment, staring up at the tiles.

It didn’t.

“Thank you,” Amélie whispered, her arms tightening as her eyes slid closed and the Witch sank deeper into her embrace.

For a moment, they stayed like that, silent and tightly holding at each other - needily, greedily grasping at the other without words, until Mercy broke the silence.

Barely -  _ barely _ broke the silence, enough that Amélie almost thought she could have imagined the words. Had it not been for the breath that accompanied them, washing warmth over her breast where it only just broke the water’s surface, she might have thought she  _ did _ imagine them.

“I’ve never known love before.”

A soft admission and a painful one - painful to the Witch, from the sound of the tone of her voice, and painful to the Countess as well. A painful and horrid reminder of the love she’d lost, that she’d had stolen from her - but was this it, now?

Had the Witch, through some dark spell, truly  _ stolen _ the love she and Gérard had shared? Stolen it and twisted it into this?

She couldn’t deny the Witch, and she’d never really been unable to deny Gérard either. She wanted the Witch, wanted her close,  _ needed _ her, even.

As with Gérard.

Were it not for all the deep reflexes telling her to pull away, to scream and run, she might even have been able to believe it was true. She couldn’t, though - could not believe it, could not scream, could not run, and even as much as she might want to, she knew she  _ did _ need the Witch.

No, she knew what this was - not love, at least not for her. Does a hound love its master? No, a hound is loyal - though the master (or  _ Mistress _ as the case may be) may love their hound.

Or at least, may say so.

A tear slid down Amélie’s cheek, soundlessly joining the water of the bath. In the next instant, her arms collapsed against her chest as the Witch - again, without a sound or a gesture - was gone.

Amélie was left alone in the cold bath, her tears doing nothing do warm it and nothing to fill it as the sun rose unseen outside past the darkened window.

Alone, again.

As she had been after Gérard, so she was without the Witch.

Perhaps it  _ was  _ love...

 

\---

 

Most of the bodies were never found, the deaths never confirmed. One man’s donkey returned to his stables in a fright, one woman’s body was found scattered in pieces across a path, the clothing of three was found by the lakeside. That first night, most of them were unfound, but their absence was noticed and noted.

By some, at least.

A woman, frantically asking others in the streets if they’d seen or heard from her husband or son - they’d gone out hunting, she’d say, and she hadn’t heard from them since. The people would always smile and tell her it was surely fine, they would surely return home soon, but when her back was turned they’d sigh and shake their heads and think it was such a shame that a man would run off with another woman so brazenly - and perhaps they’d think about what town he might have run off to, or question why he’d brought his son, but they never thought of trying to track him there and retrieve him.

Even after the next night, few believed anything had happened to him, nor to many of the others. A daughter, gone missing as well - she’d run off with one of her many young suitors, surely. The brewer’s son, he had just had one too many bottles of his father’s craft again and passed out in the woods or become lost.

The next night was much the same, but quieter.

The next, silent.

It was only after that that people stopped avoiding the topic, and began to worry.

They began to speak in hushed tones of the creature that preyed upon their town, leaving people bloodless or broken or ripped ragged, in the streets or in their own beds or the woods. When the people missing became too numerous to brush off, when the bloodied pieces became too plentiful to sadly ascribe to a roaming bear or a wandering few wolves.

When they started to realize that the truth was something far darker.

They began to call this fearsome predatory beast ‘The Widowmaker’, and though they didn’t know its appearance or its motives, they feared it.

Swift whispers painted tales of claws the length of a man’s arm, or huge clublike fists, or a slender body like a snake’s with fangs that lashed out from the darkness - a whip-tail with blades along its length, or simply huge yellow eyes that froze one solid to fall over and shatter like a block of ice in the midwinter, then to thaw into lumps of soft gore on the path.

They didn’t know what it was that took to their nights, to their forests, and they didn’t know what to do about it. A hundred fearsome fairytale beasts were ascribed - basilisks and cave-crawlers and wills-o-wisp, Jacks of the Lantern, or hags taking ingredients for their foul potions, or demons slaking their otherworldly thirsts and hungers on the town’s inhabitants.

A thousand guesses from a thousand people, and not one of them  _ knew. _

Only she knew.

Alone in her Chateau, staring out through the windows in the night, and alone. She sheltered herself from the sunlight during the days, left only at nights, and took whoever and whatever she wished, however she pleased.

True to her word, the Witch did return, and never mentioned anything of her parting admission of the last visit. Parting admission or parting  _ shot, _ the Countess began to wonder.

Amélie - The Widowmaker - was always unable to resist her commands. Unable to deny her taunting or torment, nor the soft sounds and caresses that came afterward, regardless of how hard she tried. If she behaved well, she was rewarded; if she departed from what the Witch deemed acceptable, she was punished. Usually by being forced into a hungry frenzy and left like that to languish - but as she’d promised, the Witch would always return.

Again and again and again.

Amélie would never be without her for long.

Weeks stretched on into months, and nobody ventured near the abandoned Chateau and they wandered less far into the woods, and began to take cares when leaving the house at night. They went in groups, never alone, they carried weapons or talismans, and while the measures seemed sometimes to turn the tide, there was nothing that seemed able to ensure safety as more and more went missing or, even worse, were found. Shattered.

She saw their paltry attempts to stop her. To  _ control _ her the way the Witch did. She saw them and she hated them, and only fought back all the harder.

Fighting in the only avenue she was afforded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Let's call this a soundtrack for this chapter, shall we?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04F4xlWSFh0) At least, for the first section - or, perhaps, _anthem_ might be a better term.
> 
> Lyrics:  
>  _Beaten, why for?  
>  Can't take much more!  
> One! Nothing wrong with me.  
> Two! Nothing wrong with me.  
> Three! Nothing wrong with me!  
> Four! Nothing wrong with me!  
> One! Something's got to give...  
> Two! Something's got to give.  
> Three! Something's got to give!  
> NOOOOOOO!  
> Let the bodies hit the floor!  
> Let the bodies hit the floor!_


	3. A1S3: Learning Curve

**Act One, Scene Three: Learning Curve**

 

\---

 

Vampirism was an odd thing. There were no textbooks on the subject, no academic study having been devoted to the supposed fantasy creatures, yet still there were dozens or hundreds of mentions of them in the library of  _ Château Lacroix _ .

As Amélie fed on the townspeople more and more, and as they started to take note of the creature prowling their nights and make their feeble attempts to prepare, she became curious about plumbing the depths of her power. She'd fought and killed and  _ died _ for this new life, cursed though it may have been, and she refused to let something for which she'd paid so high a price be pulled away by some fool with a wooden stake and a lucky swing.

If such a thing would even work. She didn't know - and that was precisely the problem.

Her sleepless days were filled instead with the sounds of pages turning, thick and dusty swaths of fabric hung over every window, as she pored through every tome in her library and sought out all the information she could on vampires from the tales contained therein.

They shunned the sunlight, requiring instead the darkness of night. That much she'd realized on her own.

They fed on blood. That much, Gérard had made clear.

They were creations of dark magic. That much had been obvious from the Witch.

There were a great many accounts, differing on numerous things but often sharing facets, and the most common of those she took as a sort of guideline to the likely truth. Aversions to Holy artifacts and garlic, salt, sunlight and silver. Greatly increased strength and speed.

One that repeatedly cropped up was the subject of powers of the mind, the ability to bend the wills of others. In hindsight, it made sense to her - Gérard had, truth be told, never really been able to deny her much through all of their days together. On that night of his death, though, he had seemed truly incapable of it; even with her teeth buried in his neck he had carried on, even with his blood painting her face he had been unable to cease sating her desires.

She began, as most clever people did when given enough time and freedom, to experiment with this concept. Walking the streets at night with a hood and a cape, hiding her visage away and asking others for some little thing. Directions at first, and then for coin, and then for their cherished lockets and rings and other trinkets.

There was never resistance to the first, and rarely for the second, but the third drew sharp looks and ire at her first attempt. In time, though, Amélie found that she could easily coerce them out of whatever she chose, using expected means. A smile, a gaze into their eyes, a slight lean forward at just the right moment. A certain  _ note _ in her voice. A cloak parted a little more deeply than might have been required.

She began to take some joy in it, in smiling and batting her eyelashes and making husbands throw their wedding rings into the gutter and chase her off into the woods with lusty laughs and eyes full of dark intent. Sometimes she didn’t even bother to  _ drink  _ them properly, just left them scattered around the forest floor in pieces.

There was more to her study, as well - not just immediate matters of self, but others of self-preservation in a more implicit sense. A hunt was a joy, but having a full larder was a comfort which she desperately wished to reacquire. To not be forced out of her home in order to gain sustenance, in order to sate her needs.

Alas, it seemed it was not to be. The blood did not keep - not in slain bodies, nor stored in vessels. Clumsy attempts came first with clay pots and people strung upended from trees like in some twisted butcher’s shop, but while  _ collecting _ their dripping lifeblood was easy enough, it never served to satisfy after it went cold. The first triumphant gulp from her goblet had been heavenly, but then a few hours later, she’d been forced to nauseatedly spit out the thick fluid in disgust.

Only  _ warm _ blood would suffice.

All these new things she learned, and none of them she spoke to the Witch - and the Witch never asked. Not that, no, she asked other things: she asked if Amélie had come to truly appreciate her gift yet, and Amélie replied, “Yes, Mistress.” She asked if Amélie wished she could change her fate, to trade places with her dead former husband - or perhaps with her shattered horse - and Amélie replied, “No, Mistress.”

It sickened her to know that she could not lie to the Witch. To  _ know _ that those words were the truth.

 

\---

 

The rope came from nowhere - as the Witch came from nowhere, and all of her other conjurations as well. It wrapped around her wrists, soft and strong like some constrictor snake, pulling her arms behind her back as Mercy approached.

Approached, but not entirely - approached but held her distance, for a moment at least, sharp eyes wandering over her prize before her. Amélie sat on the edge of the bed, wrists bound behind her back and wearing nothing more than that soft conjured rope.

“This look suits you,” she murmured, reaching out a fingertip to caress at Amélie’s cheek.

There was an urge to lean away, or to snarl and snap, but more than that was an urge to lean  _ in. _ The Witch was so warm, so soft - so gentle at times.

Was it not best to take full advantage of those moments? Why recoil, and in doing so spoil the softness of the moment and the softness of the Witch?

Not to mention the softness of the rope. Amélie knew from experience that it could become like a paranoid farmer’s barbed wire at a moment’s notice.

No, it was better to behave, as long as the Witch was in a good mood - and it was easier to, as well, when she was. When she was praising, and lauding, and every silky word would slither into Amélie’s ear like a soft kiss.

Even if those praises felt like mockeries, themselves, at times.

Still, she wondered. She wanted to know what kind of woman her new lover, her  _ Mistress _ by her own definition, was.

“Look?” Amélie glanced down at herself, suspecting that she knew the answer. “Which  _ look _ would that be - nude, or helpless?”

Expectedly, Mercy laughed. “Why,  _ both,  _ my dear,” she replied, slipping up to straddle Amélie’s lap and forcing her to lean backward to accommodate. “Besides,” she dipped her head to whisper in the Countess’ ear as a hand slipped down to touch at her ribs and grope at her breasts, “what need have you for strength, when you have me?”

Amélie shivered, tipping her head to the side to grant access to her neck - hoping that, perhaps, she might get the same in return. A trade of sorts. It was better to think of it that way - to think of the ropes on her wrists as some trinket or part of a game, some bargaining chip in a trade.

Better not to think of them as restraints.

The Witch’s hand roamed freely over her body, finding its way quickly between her legs - but, with Mercy still straddling her, Amélie was unable to part her knees much to grant access. Only the barest tip of the Witch’s finger was able to press down between her tightly-clamped legs, and only  _ barely _ tease at her, even as the Witch leaned forward until the pulsing artery in her neck brushed against the Countess’ lips.

She could feel the pulse, every heartbeat. They were offbeat with the irregular and frustratingly scant strokes between her legs, and that only served to drive up her frenzy over the whole thing; she quickly felt like a spring overwound, in danger of deforming permanently if it was not released soon.

Yet, she doubted she would be seeing any such quick release. This was one of the Witch’s favourite games, teasing her - in all the many ways she could.

“Do you like it?” The words were darkly delighted, hissed whispers that slunk into her brain through her ear as she writhed beneath the Witch’s hips, desperately trying to increase any one of the numerous stimulations she was undergoing.

Her wrists strained at the ropes, her hips trying to roll up or forward and grant a firmer touch, but to no avail. Her mouth stretched open, her tongue flicking lightly against that pulsing vein, but she was not allowed to bite.

Not until she was told to.

“Yes, Mistress.” Amélie’s eyes screwed shut without her command, every muscle straining to do  _ something.  _ She heard the desperation in her own words, the truth in them - and it sickened her to know that it  _ was _ the truth, as surely as the slowly growing wet spot in the duvet beneath her would demonstrate, but it was.

She wanted this. She liked this.

She wanted  _ more. _

“Bite me.”

The instant blood touched her tongue, Amélie’s eyes rolled back into her head, her whole body convulsing with delight as all thoughts of helplessness or strength, all thoughts of desire or distaste, dissolved into ecstasy instead.

 

\---

 

The answer, of course, was that the Witch was  _ not _ always there. She would always return, yes, as she had promised - but she was not  _ always _ there, and that was the reason Amélie required her strength.

That was the reason she sought out every scrap of knowledge she could, be it from her books or from personal experimentation, and every piece was thoroughly tested and documented as best she was able.

No scientist, she, but a clever woman and a huntress - well-versed in seeing patterns and tracks.

All the things she learned about herself, and she still learned little more about the Witch. The Witch, the one called Mercy, who seemed to alternate between treating Amélie as a trophy and treating her as a toy, something to be used and then discarded.

There were those moments where the Witch would catch her breath behind her teeth and cup at Amélie’s cheek, and whisper that she was beautiful, and soft murmurs would sound in her ear about how much she was desired and needed as warm hands roamed beneath her clothing and touched at her body as if they owned it, and she could not deny that they  _ did. _

Times when the Witch’s lips would meet Amélie’s not with possessive force but with some desperate sort of passion, entreating and gentle as fingers twined in her hair. Moments when Mercy, red-cheeked and panting, would call out Amélie’s name in the throes of ecstasy and it would not sound…

...it would not sound so very different from Gérard. Every time, she thought back on the Witch’s soft words, that first night - her statement of love - and every time, she wondered over it.

It sounded so familiar, her name on the Witch’s lips; it  _ felt _ so familiar, the caresses of her hand.

Perhaps… she truly had taken Gérard’s love, drank it as Amélie had drank his blood. She would think that, sometimes - let that possibility linger, as long as the Witch’s warmth and tenderness did.

The moments rarely lasted for long. Neither did the Witch’s fury; she would leave for a few weeks to let Amélie stew, yes, sometimes left incapacitated or even bound to languish in her hunger. The Witch would always return, though, with a smile and a soft touch on Amélie’s cheek, and a gentle tone as she loosened the ropes or told her to rise from where she’d been spending her time forced to kneel eternally on the floor.

The inverse was equally true. The Witch often visited only for the night, if even that long, but sometimes the situation would turn on its head and she would spend long weeks in the Château, lazing on the couches and asking wide-eyed to be doted upon, and smiling as Amélie fed her conjured grapes one by one, and she was so very warm when they spent their time pressed together.

Neither did this last.

There would be days on end of fine and warm blood to be drunk, and the most  _ potent _ of blood as well, Mercy’s, and there would be weeks of warmth and softness, and then it would all end in a harsh snap and a snarl, a slap perhaps, a growl. Or perhaps, once more, simply absence - no sound and no indication, but the Witch would be gone in an instant, leaving behind only Amélie. Hunger. Cold, once more.

Like the moon and the sun, in some ways, the Witch was; her warmth, her coldness, and she never stayed for long. The one side always gave way to the other, and the warmer the day, the colder the night - but the harshest of nights could be thought of kindly, for they always led to the brightest of days.

Thus was the Witch.

Such paltry things as days or nights meant little to Amélie, not in the form of any calendar kept. Her only schedule was one of thirst and hunger, her only clock came with a grin that glittered in the moonlight and clothing that disappeared at the snap of fingers.

...and for all of this, over time untold with her unmarked calendar, Amélie learned no more of the Witch.

Attempts to steer the conversation were always met negatively, and Amélie stopped asking for fear of the hunger-punishment she would endure. Any moment which seemed like it might lead to some information about Mercy’s past, who she was, from whence she had come - they all came to naught.

As surely as it all, the night gave way to the day, and back again, and again, and again...

 

\--

 

They lay by the fireside one night, bare to the air and each other’s skin, and as always the Witch felt warm and welcoming and Amélie hated every too-familiar caress of her fingertips.

The world was always so cold, but not the Witch - not her body, not her hands, not her  _ blood. _ Amélie craved it. She would give anything she had for it.

“Amélie, my dear,” the Witch murmured, her voice soft and her eyes distant as they stared toward the dancing flames. “Tell me… that I am pretty.”

“You’re pretty,” Amélie replied in an instant, not even pausing to  _ think _ about denying the Witch any whim which happened to pop into her mind. She had learned that life was easier when she simply did as she was told.

One hand, resting on Mercy’s shoulder, was disturbed when the Witch pushed herself more upright and turned, searching Amélie’s eyes with an expression that seem halfway between confusion and disgust. Her lips parted, drawing breath as if to speak, but then she simply sneered and disappeared in an instant, and the fire flared higher for a moment at her absence.

Then, a few seconds later, the flame subsided and Amélie was left to scowl heavily at it - scowl as the Witch’s warmth faded from her skin, scowl as her hunger was left to rumble in her stomach, scowl as the fire failed to provide anything even vaguely of use. No warmth, no comfort. Only the Witch could bring those, now.

All she could think was that maybe, if that gorgeous snow-white fox pelt hung above her mantlepiece, perhaps it would have been worth it.

 

\---

 

The chilled air was no colder than the fireplace had been as Amélie set off through the forest. The town had grown some in size, and had grown in paranoia as well, of the creature that stalked its nights.

Meals were not as straightforward as they once had been - simply waiting to pounce upon someone unsuspecting no longer worked, as there  _ were _ no unexpecting persons walking the streets. Save for, perhaps, the town’s visitors on occasion - but one could never rely on such a nomadic food source. A tasty treat every now and then, certainly, but hardly consistent.

Food was scarcer than it had been, blood was, and it had driven her to some lengths. Storing the blood never worked, not even when she had convinced a surgeon to extract some from the living vein of a young woman and store it most carefully in his finest phials. Even then, the blood had gone bad within hours, and the Widowmaker - Amélie - had been left angered and unsatisfied, and had slain them both, doctor and donor, for her troubles.

The old ways of jumping upon the unaware no longer worked, and the powers of her mind worked far better in individual circumstances than in groups. Five men could resist her allure, and leave her feeling only all the more vicious for it - she had even, on one occasion, sustained an injury as one member of a small cluster had managed to ready a blade and lash out.

Inlaid with silver as the knife had been, the wound had not healed readily, and she had been left to sulk, sour and hungry in her library, as she studied all she could. 

 

\---

 

A sneer. That was the first noise, the herald of the Witch’s arrival.

Amélie’s head whipped around, long-unknown pain driving her fear to higher levels; the gash in her side throbbed, and leaked a thick black fluid which hardly seemed as if it could be blood.

Slowly, though, at least. It could be considered the one good thing, that it leaked slowly.

“What  _ have _ you done with yourself?” The Witch sneered, distaste as clear on her face as her nose before her eyes met Amélie’s angrily. “You haven’t been taking enough care.”

“I hardly  _ meant _ this to happen,” the Countess grumbled glumly, shutting the book she’d been halfway through perusing. It seemed fanciful rather than factual, and accordingly of little interest. She shifted on her chair, lifting the cloth which she had been holding in place until she’d been startled and dropped it.

The blood - if even it could be called blood - didn’t seem to soak into the fabric quite right. Like molasses, or mercury - more the latter than the former, now that she thought of it - it didn’t seem to find the threads and follow them. Rather, the thick black fluid dwelt in the gaps in the loose gauzy weave, viscous and holding its place.

Doubtlessly, she would need to throw away the cloth.

“Oh, well then I can hardly be irritated over it, can I?” The Witch laughed haughtily, shaking her head as she snapped her fingers and lit candles throughout the library.

The sudden brightness hurt Amélie’s eyes and she snarled instinctively, recoiled, but averted them to the closed cover of her book instead of looking up at the Witch. “Far be it from me to say what you can or can not do.”

She spun on heel then, the Witch did, and fixed Amélie with a solid glowering glare for several seconds of silence.

“Indeed,” she eventually said, short and sharp as she shook her head. “But  _ I _ have no such limitation when it comes to you, my dear, and from this point on you  _ will _ be more cautious to avoid harm - do you understand me?”

“Yes, Mistress,” Amélie dipped her head in a nod.

The Witch only nodded, then her eyes caught the wound again and she scoffed in disgust. “You- you are lucky that I prize you intact. Lucky that your beauty would be despoiled by the scar that that would surely leave were it to heal naturally - but you can not rely on that luck forever, my dear. Here,” she waved a hand, producing a small phial from seemingly nowhere, “drink this.”

Amélie reached out to take it, then hissed and pulled her hand back as it stretched at the wound and caused the pain to throb. She had become so very un-used to it, to pain, as her wounds healed so quickly now, yet this one lingered.

“This will heal me?” Her eyes flicked to meet the Witch’s as she took the phial with her other hand instead to avoid disturbing the sensitive flesh, thumbing the cork out and onto the floor.

Mercy, though, just laughed - that same haughty, dismissive laugh she so often employed.

“Heal you?” She grinned, widely, a grin that had Amélie’s heart sinking. “Why, of course not,  _ my dear. _ This will simply prevent you from scarring. Now, I  _ could _ heal you - but would a child learn to avoid fire if they were never burned?”

All of the grin and the joy dropped from her face, replaced by harsh lines in her countenance describing a deep bitterness. “Perhaps you will be more careful next time, with this memory of silver on your conscience. I hope, for  _ your _ sake, that it is so, my dear.”

She turned away, so swiftly her tails swished out to the side, and called back over her shoulder. “Oh, and do be more careful with that blood. It's a powerful substance, and no longer  _ yours _ to waste.”

Then, she was gone. No noise, no flash, no warning and no indication - simply, no Witch, as was always the case.

Amélie tipped the phial back, and it was the foulest, most bitter concoction she’d ever imbibed, and it did nothing to lessen the pain - and looking down, she could see that the wound was just as vicious as it had been.

She couldn’t help but feel that she deserved it. For killing Gérard, for losing her touch, for not taking care and getting injured. 

She deserved it all.

 

\---

 

The Witch had proved true to her word: the wound, once healed, had no scar nor lingering indication of its existence, but it was clear to Amélie that she needed to take more care. Death was beyond her but damage clearly wasn’t,  _ pain _ clearly wasn’t, and she had no desire to undergo either. She needed to be more cautious to avoid harm. There were, however, only so many straightforward options.

She could leap upon her prey and count on superior strength and speed to bear her out, but risk injury in the process. She could lure them off, one by one, but only if she could keep them from falling prey to the effects of others who surrounded them.

Or, she could get creative.

Her new tactics were quite different from where she’d begun.

She pulled her coat tighter around her shoulders, not to keep out the night’s chill but to keep out prying eyes that wandered and wondered over her pale skin and her sharp eyes or sharper teeth. She could assuage them and their suspicions, of course,  _ individually, _ but if a sufficiently large number took note of her? If they began,  _ en masse, _ to become suspicious or violent? Her only option would be to flee.

That would only make her feel all the more like some cur of a dog, and the mere  _ thought _ of that had her wanting to destroy the entire town, but as much as she hated them, she required them.

Quite like the Witch, then.

She needed the lifeblood of the town’s inhabitants, and so she let them carry out their little patrols with their absurd outfits which did nothing at all to dissuade her presence. She let them carry their lucky symbols and their scarves in bright colours and let them believe that  _ that _ was the reason she left fewer bodies broken in their nights, because if all of them simply decided the town was cursed enough to  _ abandon  _ it, she would be left to languish in hunger.

The Witch already left her to that often enough. She refused to let a bunch of  _ humans _ , who were so far beneath her, do the same.

The tavern was raucous, which was perfectly to her devices. If there was much movement, nobody would look her way twice. If there was much noise, nobody would hear her murmuring to one man or another about sneaking away from prying eyes. If there were many people, nobody would notice one who went missing when they followed a cloaked woman off and away.

It was quite like a hunt from her former life, in some ways. She needed to stay quiet and unseen, to lay eyes on her quarry before they spotted her. She needed to move slowly, to avoid frightening it - but there was, of course, the matter of a lure as well. The prey would not come on their own.

They needed to be baited, to be drawn out of their hiding spots.

Amélie kept her hood up, but undid a few buttons at the top of her cloak and let them hang open to reveal the curves of her chest underneath;  _ bait. _ So foolish, so stupidly basal, these humans were - so single-minded in their desires that they would throw away all their concern over survival in the hopes of gaining access to some warm flesh.

Little did they know, she had none of that to offer.

Normally, it took her only moments to find an interested stare upon her, and no man ever tried very hard to look at her  _ face _ when she had so much else on display. She hardly needed to worry over them deciphering her true self, either as  _ what _ she was, or  _ who _ she was, the former Countess of these lands.

Tonight, though, was to be some departure from the norm.

Her huntress’ eyes darted around the room, sizing up her prey: that one there was too slim and measly, he would hardly provide a  _ worthwhile _ meal, and the next - who grinned so wide it looked as if it must be hurting him - looked ill. She had no desire to drink tainted blood. The next in line was too portly by far - she wanted a meal which had exercised, not some prey which had never stepped further than from desk to door.

Another, and another, discarded for this reason or that, and all the while her stomach grumbled pitifully.

The truest problem of it, perhaps, was that food still  _ smelled _ good. Wine still looked so gorgeously crisp in a glass, yet she could partake of none of it. Here, it surrounded her, ever-present reminders of what she was and was not, and all the while her stomach growled for the sustenance she could not or  _ would _ not provide.

Her appetite was a somewhat fickle thing. Some days, any beating heart would do, but some days she would discard so many in order to find the ideal one upon which to pounce.

She thought of the Witch, of Mercy, with her perfect blood - so pure and so full of  _ power _ \- and her mouth filled at the thought of it, leaving her to gulp or risk beginning to drool.

How could any of these fools compare? In the slightest, in  _ any _ way, to her Mistress? Love or hate, she  _ needed _ the Witch, and more than that, she  _ wanted _ her.

“C’n I get you something?”

Amélie frowned slightly, hearing the accented voice from behind her shoulder which pulled her from her thoughts - a barmaid, she suspected, here to offer some food or drink.

Little would she know the only sustenance that would suffice, of course.

With a slight sigh, Amélie let her eyes slide closed and decided to try to see what she could figure out of this woman without looking at her. A way of exercising her newfound skills, of honing them and keeping them sharp - just in the case that she might, one day, need to rely on them to cut through some bonds.

A deep breath held carefully brought hints of soap, and smoke from the hearthfire, spilled spots of ale and thick gravy, and…

...perfume…

...two perfumes? There was one which, from its strength, was clearly donned by the woman who stood at Amélie’s elbow, but in with that was entangled a subtle second scent. Not a mixture of incidental contact - not someone who had bumped shoulders with her once or twice, but a consistent contact; the faintly lingering notes of some flower Amélie didn’t recognize by its scent, something foreign perhaps.

Interesting.

The woman spoke English rather than French, but that was hardly any surprise - there was such a variety of persons here, and travel was common. Amélie spoke it as well, along with German, and Italian, and a few others. Such were the requirements of antiquated nobility; such too were the trappings of a more recent need to blend amongst a varied populace.

It only took an instant to intake all of this information, and to build a likely story. This woman, an immigrant - a worker here at the Tavern, seemingly generally, bringing firewood and stoking the fire, giving ale and food and whatever other tasks needed doing. She was a child of a foreign land, moving here presumably with family; a mother, or perhaps sister, someone to impart that second scent through evenings spent in close proximity, soft touches of comfort and love.

It wasn’t necessarily an interesting tale, nor a useful one. Simply something to keep her skills sharp, because they might mean the difference between success and failure some day. Even a Huntress who is not actively seeking it as prey might still track a grouse from time to time.

The woman’s heart was beating…

...so  _ swiftly. _

Amélie’s nostrils flared slightly, drawing in a deep pull of those intermingling perfumes again as she turned with a smile. A smile which only widened at the slight shock on the woman’s face - the shock, and the audible tremor in her heart.

Interesting as well.

Instead of responding to the question and placing an order, Amélie decided to wait. Wait, and sit, and look back. She slowly raised an eyebrow as the brown-eyed woman held her gaze, and her heart started running faster and  _ faster _ .

Suddenly, Amélie felt quite hungry indeed. She let it slip through into her gaze, that hunger, her eyelids narrowing as she leaned forward and accentuated her  _ bait. _ The barmaid’s eyes dropped instantly to the revealed flesh.

Perhaps  _ not _ a sister or mother, then, that second perfume.

“S-something to- um, eat?” The woman shook her head slightly, blinking hard - Amélie had seen that before, people making their futile attempts to free themselves from her clutches. 

There were limits to how far she could push a person’s mind from its current state. The mind had a momentum, of sorts, it seemed, and the more she wanted to shift it, the harder she needed to  _ push. _

Leaning forward a degree further, she laid a hand on the barmaid’s upper arm and smiled softly. She responded in English, but accented with her native French. “Mmm,” she tipped her head to the side, her smile taking on a slightly sharper edge as she heard and  _ felt _ the woman’s heart speed up, “something to  _ drink, _ I think.”

“D-drink, yeah, we’ve uh-” her eyes stretched almost desperately elsewhere, over toward the bar, but they snapped back to the front when Amélie’s gentle touch on her arm became a bit firmer. “We’ve got drinks, yeah, you um- ale? Wine?”

“Something a bit more exotic than that, I should think,” Amélie murmured with a half-shrug, letting her eyes drop away to her other hand, resting on the tabletop. “And more commonplace at once. I-” an idea struck her, simultaneously to see how far the woman was willing to stray from her path, and also, some indulgence into a desire she’d seen go un-sated for far too long.

The barmaid was not an unattractive woman, certainly: fairly short hair that swept in thick brown spikes, wide brown eyes and a petite nose with faint freckles dotting across it and her cheeks, a slim and athletic body. Behind it all, that ever-racing heard that Amélie felt she could practically  _ taste _ at this point, and it was making her salivate in anticipation as her own blood began to stir faster, and-

Yes, the days were done of depriving herself of  _ any _ thing which she sought to gain. The days were done of denying herself any luxury.

She would have what she wished.

With a laugh, she patted the barmaid on the arm again, standing from her stool. “Oh, but silly me-” she was somewhat taller than the barmaid, and looked down with a smile from very close proximity, “-I already have it at home. A very fine wine, you see - a rare vintage, uncommon in these parts. My  _ problem, _ you see,” she leaned in even closer, her voice dropping to a soft whisper, “is that I have no person with which to  _ share _ it.”

Again, the woman’s heart didn’t fail to delight, leaping at her actions like a puppet on strings. Had she known this would be  _ this _ easy, she would not have had any of the others - those whose heartbeats ran thick with gravy and mead and ale, torpid from sitting on their benches and rolling their dice, no,  _ this _ was to be a  _ real _ meal. Spry and swift, heart running quickly from leaping around the Tavern - honed on the chopping block to provide firewood, polished by the mead not imbibed but  _ served, _ and racing ever so quickly.

Yes, this was an indulgence she should have sought out earlier.

“S-that’s a shame, love,” the barmaid replied in a whisper of her own, and Amélie quite liked the idea that perhaps she could not  _ manage _ anything greater than a whisper. “Real shame, bird like you being alone and all, I uh-”

“Do you think so?” Amélie leaned back and tipped her head to the side, locking eyes again; it seemed to make things easier, the eye contact. To open the paths into their feeble little minds. “I agree. Quite a shame, being alone.”

“Sh-shame, yeah…” The woman’s lips moved as if of their own volition, and Amélie’s grin widened.

“You could return with me, if you would like.” She didn’t blink, refused to blink, letting her countenance take on a hungry aspect whilst trying to suppress the most hostile  _ predatory _ facets.

“Return with… you…”

Her grin widened further, eyelids drooping coyly. “Oh, so you  _ would _ like to, would you? Hmm?”

The brunette nodded, as if drunk - as if in a dream, and the whole of that dream was  _ Amélie, _ and she felt so  _ powerful. _ So wonderful.

“Would like to,” the serving-maid affirmed in a soft voice, close enough that Amélie could feel the slight warmth of breath on her cheek, and it had her leaning in to get more, but then the girl’s gaze shifted elsewhere - out to the rest of the tavern, some concern in them. “C-can’t just leave, I can’t-”

_ “Can,” _ Amélie corrected, reaching up to pull the woman’s chin back with a finger, making her lock eyes once more. She tried to swallow back her hunger and the sharpness it brought into her tone, affecting a soft smile again. “What is your name,  _ ma chérie?” _

“L-” she swallowed it back as if it didn’t want to come out, but a renewed look from Amélie brought it spilling past tight lips, “L-Lena, mistress.”

She knew it was just a title. A thing to call the customers, like “sir” or “madame”, she knew this, but at the same time it sent a thrill of joy down every nerve of her spine to hear the word spoken to her.

She wanted to hear it  _ again. _

“Lena, that is a pretty name. Pretty name for a pretty girl. I am Amélie,” she murmured with a smile, stroking her thumb on the point of Lena’s chin. “Now, see? We are not strangers, are we?”

Lena shook her head, aided by the thumb on her chin and the gaze penetrating deep into her eyes.

“So it would not be dangerous to trust me, would it?”

A nod, helped along by the same external factors - not  _ forced _ , per se, so much as  _ persuaded. _

“Come along then,” Amélie whispered heavily, her eyes wide.  _ “Come along with me.” _

That was all it took. A trap, baited with a bit of flesh - vivid, if not warm. A huntress’ eye, picking out prey in the swarm. A practiced hand lining up the shot, and then at last, the blow itself.

The server-maid followed her swiftly out through the doors, clasped hand-in-hand - hers was so warm, even through the gloves that Amélie wore, and she could feel the heartbeat through leather and skin. Her mouth filled constantly, she felt as if she might drown in her own saliva before she made it back to the Château, but she was determined.

Her hunger, however, won out over her determination.

As it so often did.

Halfway through the forest, hand in hand and laughing in the moonlight, Amélie suddenly spun to face Lena full on, eyes wide and wild with hunger and lust, and shoved her hard back against a tree.

“Oi,” Lena chuckled, grinning, “playing it rough, are we?”

“You don’t know the  _ half _ of it,” Amélie murmured, licking her lips and swallowing heavily, but there was nothing else to it. Why should she deny herself anything? Why should she delay? Just because the girl had a job, or a family, or a life - that sibling or parent or lover whose perfume she had smelled. Who cared?

Amélie certainly didn’t.

She was upon the girl in a flash, her mouth sealing on the soft pale skin of her neck - a high, keening cry split the night air, but it wasn’t one of pain. An almost-shriek of delight pealed like the parish bells from Lena’s mouth as her fingers clenched tightly in Amélie’s hair.

Her heart beat so  _ quickly,  _ so swift - she was the finest hare Amélie had ever laid eyes upon, and as was always the case with hares, there were two thrills to be had.

The coursing, and the  _ capture. _

Amélie groaned obscenely, muffling the noise in Lena’s neck as her fangs pierced skin and she gulped at hot, fresh, sweet,  _ glorious _ blood. Her fingers, almost claw-like, dug into the tree and pulled her in with super-human strength, keeping Lena pinned tightly there, but the girl never even tried to fight it.

“Yes! Oh, god, Amélie!” The words came out squealed and high, twisted and desperate as Lena writhed beneath her, but not in any way as if she wanted to escape. “Y-yes, please-”

It took a moment, through the focus that she poured into her feast, to realize the other things that were happening - Lena’s hand, which had been in Amélie’s hair, had shifted away to the front of the Countess’ outfit and tugged now at the laces of her breeches. The girl’s other hand was locked around one of her wrists, and at first, Amélie thought it was some defensive or hostile gesture and she snarled and pressed Lena harder against the tree trunk.

The moan that ripped from the girl’s throat pushed away any thought that it was hostile or defensive or in any way negative, though, and then Amélie realized that the hand at her wrist was not trying to pull her arm free for escape. It was trying to pull her hand  _ down. _

The whole while, she continued to drink - gulping at first, for a moment or two, to slake her thirst and sate her hunger, but then as the sharpest of the pangs faded in the first few seconds, she began to take her time. She withdrew just slightly, not gulping directly from the vein but letting the blood well up on the skin and lapping it away with quick flicks of her tongue.

Lena reacted intensely to the change, an obscene and soundless noise leaping from her mouth as she yanked at the laces of Amélie’s breeches and finally got them free, and thrust her hand down into the garment’s depths.

The warmth between her legs was sudden from Lena’s hand, and Amélie instinctively shifted just a little, widening her stance to grant the girl better access. She was going to die, there was no sense denying her something she wished for - and besides, she seemed to know what she was doing. Her fingers curled deftly, stroking firmly against Amélie’s sensitive ridge, immediately setting to work - wasting no time with any teasing touch.

“Mmmm,” Amélie pulled back from Lena’s neck just enough to shift up, to nip at her ear as a drip of blood trailed down her chin. “Impatient, are we?”

“Y-you’re the one who pushed me back against the-” Lena started, breathless, as Amélie licked away the bit of blood which had transferred from her lips to the earlobe she’d nipped at and then just waited there. “Against the- the tree here and- and- why’d you stop? Amélie, please, don’t stop, I want-”

With a laugh, Amélie leaned in and licked a stripe up Lena’s neck, starting down at her collarbone where some blood pooled in the natural well and following the thick red trails back up. The girl let out a rough shout at that, her hand dropping from Amélie’s wrist to her shoulder, gripping on tightly as if to ride out an approaching storm.

It was nearly the truth, as well, as Amélie continued to lap at the upwelling of blood and then to suck at her neck again. She could feel the woman’s heart begin to be affected - to slow from its frantic pace, and could hear some of the strength begin to sap from her pleasured cries.

There seemed to be no real downside, at first, but it was admittedly less fun than it  _ had _ been. The fun is in the coursing, in the chase, and in the capture - the cleaning after the kill was simply  _ work, _ and she’d already had her meal.

The final straw was when Lena’s strength began to flag such that her hand, desperately probing and stroking deep inside Amélie’s pants, began to slow.

Amélie growled, withdrawing from Lena’s neck - the girl whimpered, but Amélie pushed her shoulders hard back against the tree.  _ “Focus,” _ she hissed sharply, grabbing at the wrist which plunged into her pants. “You are getting sloppy. And-” she sighed dismissively, tearing a section of Lena’s blouse free with one hand and holding it against her neck. “Hold this here. You are bleeding.”

“Y- oh, y-yeah, of course,” Lena muttered weakly, her head nodding a little and eyes seeming to unfocus as her other hand rose to hold the torn bit of fabric against her neck. “Wh-why’s, why’m I bleedin’? Wha-”

“Does it matter?” Amélie gripped a firm fistful of hair, pulling Lena’s head to gaze into her eyes with a frown and a shake of her head. “No, no it does not -  _ ma chérie, _ I am so close, do not  _ stop _ now, keep going.”

Lena took a breath, her eyes shifting as if she was drunk or had been awake and working for days straight without rest, but when Amélie hissed and leaned in and  _ pushed _ her desires out through every extremity, Lena seemed to snap out of that trance and back into her right mind.

“R-right,” she nodded, her hand moving with renewed vigor as she shifted to plunge two fingers deep into the Huntress. “Just as you like, love - god you’re gorgeous.”

Amélie groaned softly, the sound shifting high and filled with desire as she rolled her hips forward against Lena’s working hand. “Call me Mistress,” she hissed desperately in a moment of intent.

“Whatever you want, Mistress,” Lena murmured swiftly, heatedly, intensely as she stared in awe at the beauty a few scant inches away from her face, holding the torn rag firmly against the side of her neck.

“Yes,” Amélie moaned, gripping at Lena’s shoulders as she leaned her head back to face up to the moon and the sky, “yes, what _ ever _ I want, that is right…”

The night filled with more sounds of ecstasy and lust as Amélie’s mouth pulled starkly open in the moonlight, the taste of blood still tangy on her lips and tongue as warm fingers plunged into her and she ground forward against a hot palm. She could feel Lena’s heartbeat, still, picking up again.

Perhaps, a meal might be enjoyed more than once - if one was careful, if one  _ savoured _ it as one should do with wine. Besides, the blood never had kept in the jar.

Perhaps it would do to have a person around the Château, at her disposal for whatever she wished - for warmth, for satisfaction of this urge or that one, to sate one hunger or another. The Witch would always return, yes, but she would also always  _ leave. _

Perhaps, if she was careful, she might be able to course and catch this hare again, and again, and again…

Lena yelped in pain like a struck hound as Amélie’s fingers clenched in sharply on her shoulders, a high shriek heralding her orgasm before she shoved Lena back against the tree again and pressed a rough, almost desperate kiss to her mouth.

Amélie shuddered as she felt Lena’s tongue nick one of her teeth and slice open on it. and she dove after that taste, chasing it down with her own tongue and trying to leech everything she could until Lena was struggling to even breathe - but she could _ feel _ that even at that point the girl did not want to stop.

“You are coming back to the Château with me,” Amélie murmured heatedly against Lena’s lips, staring deep into her eyes. “You will not be leaving any time soon.”

“Of course, Mistress,” Lena nodded with a loose, almost goofy grin. “Whatever you want, Mistress.”

Amélie’s eyes narrowed into predatory slits, her lips curling to reveal a sharp and sharp-toothed grin, the bright red blood-stained lips standing out starkly against her pale skin in the moonlight. 

“That is  _ right,” _ she purred, stroking a fingertip down Lena’s neck, along the artery, feeling the pulse there - delicious, delectable, but it would keep. She would drink of the woman more later. “What _ ever _ I want…”


	4. A1S4: The Training of the Hare

**Act One, Scene Four: The Training of the Hare**

 

\---

 

It was not a long journey back to the Château, particularly, but hardly one which would be called short either. For Amélie alone, it was quite a swift trip, as she was able to race with inhuman speed through the trees and along the paths.

Lena, however - though she was, as any fine hare, quite quick - was incapable of such supernatural feats as Amélie.

As such, it was several hours by the time they returned, even though it had taken Amélie only minutes to make the journey’s inverse earlier that night. As they ran, Amélie could feel Lena’s strength returning - could hear it, thumping harder in her heart, and she began to hunger for another meal.

Perhaps another dessert, as well, of heaving breaths and ecstatic cries and  _ heat. _

With every beat, every pulse, every footstep and breath, Amélie’s mind dove further and further into perversions, each as twisted as any other. The girl, Lena, writhing in ecstasy in a porcelain bathtub  _ filled _ with her own blood; or perhaps that red essence of life painted over her form in splashes and trails like caramel over a pastry begging to be picked clean both literally and metaphorically.

Every such thought added to her hunger, sharpening it like a blade upon a whetstone. With every thought, every step, every heartbeat, every passing instant...

The Château was built up on a hill, with the surrounding lands lying low and the village in the distance constructed on a series of rolling heights. Apparently the lowlands had, at times, filled with water and formed a surrounding lake, but Amélie had never seen that sight for herself and doubted its truth. Regardless, the structure had been built to cope with water as well as with threats from land.

The only relevant detail, at least to Amélie at that moment, was the low wall that surrounded the house at some distance out. Not anything that would prevent a single person from entering, but more than enough to spoil a cavalry charge or prevent a regiment’s free movement, or to crack the hulls of any approaching craft who didn’t know its construction and placement.

Or, for that matter, more than enough to slam a young woman back against with enough force that Amélie almost worried over hurting her for a second.

Not even a full second, though.

Lena let out a cry somewhere between pleasure and pain - but leaning sharply toward the latter - as she hit the stone wall, and Amélie immediately pulled her rag-clutching hand away, latched onto her neck again, and drank deeply.

Or, at least, she tried to.

Withdrawing in confusion when she was unable to get a mouthful of blood, Amélie stared down at the woman’s neck: the small puncture wounds from her fangs appeared to have healed, or at least somewhat. Puckered skin, red, and with small veins standing out near the skin’s surface, indicated where the wounds had been.

_ Had _ been. Past tense.

They weren’t abolished entirely, not invisible or healed even to the point of being merely scars, but they  _ were _ far more healed than any human should have been capable of within the scant space of an hour or so.

Of course, Amélie felt a slight thrill of satisfaction in the knowledge that, had  _ she _ sustained such an injury, it would have been healed entirely in the space of a few  _ moments _ rather than hours _. _

“What’s-” Lena frowned, noticing Amélie’s confusion. “What’s wrong? Is something wrong?”

Amélie tipped her head to the side, inspecting the little thick lumps and puckered skin that indicated her former triumph on this woman’s neck. “Mmm. Perhaps. Hardly a problem that cannot be worked around, but… you appear to have healed.”

“H-healed? Whatcha talking ‘bout, love?”

“Mistress,” Amélie corrected, but neither her voice nor her focus were sharp. She was somewhat detached, her voice and visage one of general disinterest as she muddled over what might have happened, and how. “The punctures in your neck, they have healed quite swiftly. Did you do that?”

Her eyes flicked to meet Lena’s as her focus returned somewhat, and she smirked in a gesture that seemed somewhere between playful and accusatory. “Quite selfish, do you not think? Keeping all of your blood for yourself?”

Lena laughed, running a hand unabashedly up underneath the Countess’ shirt and along her ribs. Amélie hummed and leaned into the warmth, urged on by her natural inclinations and by so many repetitious events of conditioning by the Witch.

“You what, lov- Mistress?” Lena raised an eyebrow, her hand almost idly beginning to undo the buttons on Amélie’s shirt. “What’s all this about blood and- and necks and healing, and…”

She seemed to forget her words, the sentence becoming softer until it trailed into nothing as Lena shifted forward and sucked at Amélie’s collarbone, and the Countess had to admit that the warmth was quite nice, and the girl’s consistent enthusiasm was a delightful change of pace from the Witch’s mercurial tendencies.

Even if her blood lacked that same potency...

“Mmmm,” Amélie hummed a sigh through her nose, entangling fingers in Lena’s hair and holding her head in place against her neck. “I was  _ drinking _ your blood, from your  _ neck, _ but the wounds through which I drank appear to have  _ healed. _ Dreadfully inconvenient, I shall simply need to bite you again.”

“Bloody shame, that,” Lena muttered hotly against Amélie’s skin, nibbling at her collarbone. “Did I ever tell you birds biting my neck is a bit of a weakness?”

Amélie let out a laugh, high and bright in the night air. “Oh, indeed? Ha! But I think, perhaps, not quite like  _ this _ ,  _ chérie. _ Or,” she tipped her head to the side, reconsidering, “rather, I suppose this is a weakness of all. Certainly all I have had.”

“Aww, I thought I was special,” Lena chuckled against Amélie’s neck, not even slightly trying to fight back against the hand that held her there even as she stripped off the Countess’ shirt and flung it to the ground, her hot hands roaming swiftly over the newly-exposed skin. Or at least, the one not still holding a rag did so. “Now you’re telling me there’ve been all these others? Could make a girl jealous, y’know.”

“Jealous?” Amélie raised an eyebrow, but didn’t reposition. She didn’t need to see the girl’s face. “You will not be getting jealous.”

Lena’s mouth flew open, protests flying. “S’only a joke, love! Mistress, I mean - didn’t mean it, obviously you can do what you like, I only-”

“Ahhh, a joke,” Amélie grinned, silencing her new pet’s protests by pressing her warm mouth in more firmly against her collarbone and then moaning as Lena’s teeth came down against it.

Lena’s hand ran up and threaded fingers through Amélie’s hair, the barmaid grinning and giggling slightly. “Looks like I’m not the only one who likes a nice bite every now and then.”

The Countess rolled her eyes.  _ “Not _ the same thing,  _ chérie. _ ”

With a laugh and a shake of her head, Lena started to say something else, but then her eyes seemed to catch on the piece of fabric she still held, compelled by a given command never retracted - the scrap, torn from her shirt and pressed into her hand when she was given an order to hold it against her bleeding neck, the once-beige fragment of fabric dyed now dark red with blood. Her hand had been pulled away when Amélie had displaced it with her mouth, and it hung directionless off to the side now, no commands driving its placement but unable to drop the fabric which Lena stared at now in dawning confusion.

“Wh-what’s-”

Amélie could hear a difference in her tone and withdrew slightly, raising an eyebrow in curiosity as she watched events unfold. They were far enough from the town that there was no possible negative outcome here - the worst case was that Lena would begin to scream and run, and need to be silenced one way or another.

She didn’t, though. Not  _ quite, _ although her voice did become quite high and squeaky as she stared at the crimson-stained cloth.

“B-blood?” One of Lena’s hands flew to her neck, searching for a wound or more of that crimson stuff of life, but it had long since been licked clean of anything. Her fingertips, however, did feel those two little lumps and her eyes grew even wider, and then they turned to meet Amélie’s.

The Countess saw in the barmaid’s eyes no indecision, and none of that fog which had been there recently - here, now, with distance between them and no effort on her part, and with a sufficient  _ jog _ to the girl’s mind, it seemed that some of her will had been restored.

A shame.

“Why- why’m I bleeding, what-” Lena’s questions came out breathless, but her heart began to race and that had Amélie’s lips pulling back from her sharp teeth in an almost impatient grin.

Lena saw the hints of red painting those teeth, those  _ sharp _ teeth, and red as well on the edges of the skin around the lips - just where the men in the tavern always sported gravy, just out of range of a tongue that tried to sweep up every remnant of a meal eaten sloppily, and then, in a moment of clarity, Lena put it together.

“Y-you’re- god you’re- you’re  _ it _ you’re that thing, the Widowmaker, aren’t you,” she stammered, backing up against the wall.

The Countess only tipped her head to the side, studying her like a doctor watching a test subject, like some animal which had been administered a new concoction and now the only thing left to do was wait and watch and gauge the results.

Without any seeming regard for who was watching her or how, Lena continued to ramble freely, looking around almost at random. “I heard stories but I didn’t think they were true, I- I never thought that- they thought it was some kind of animal but- those teeth and the blood and- god I’ve got to get out of here, I’ve got-”

It was as if her thoughts came out of her mouth of their own volition, unminded and untended. Falling over themselves like small beasts fleeing some fearsome predator, the thoughts piling up and slurring together as they flew.

Amélie’s eyes narrowed as Lena’s gaze roved around. The walls, the trees, the sky, everywhere but  _ her _ it seemed, and here she was standing with messed hair and her shirt hanging open, her chest bare to the moon and nearby eyes, and the girl wasn’t even  _ looking _ at her.

Irritating, to say the least.

_ “Look at me,”  _ Amélie hissed, and Lena’s eyes immediately snapped to hers, though the fear was still clear there. The Countess’ grin widened by several degrees. “Yes, that is better,  _ ma chérie.  _ Now,” she stepped forward again, and Lena shifted away. “No, do not move.  _ Stay.” _

Immediately, Lena froze in place against the wall, and Amélie stopped approaching a moment later as her grin widened even further. An idea struck her, one more question to answer and cross off the list, and she took a pace backward, crossing her arms.

“Come here.”

Even though her eyes remained wide, and clearer than they had been, even though her heart hammered in obvious fear and her gaze was struck through with the same, even though the Countess could practically  _ feel _ her desire to scream out and run away, Lena stepped over immediately.

Amélie reached out a hand, gently caressing Lena’s cheek and relishing the warmth she found there. They were separated by only a foot or so, now, and that was promptly reduced to nearly nothing when Amélie took half a pace forward. Lena’s head tipped back so that she could maintain eye contact, and the Countess leaned in until there were only inches of space between their faces.

“Now,” her voice dropped to a soft whisper, barely even audible amongst the soft breezes in the trees, “kiss me.”

Despite the clear fear in her eyes and the ever-quickening hammering of her heart, Lena stretched forward - forward and up, and the instant Amélie felt warmth on her lips, she withdrew with a smile and held Lena’s head in place with one hand resting gently on her cheek.

That warmth, that ghost of a kiss, lingered on her lips for several seconds before succumbing to her natural cold and the night air. Her hand drifted down, to the side of Lena’s neck - those two little puckered nubs of skin, the former punctures.

Amélie let out a single laugh a few seconds later, shaking her head. It was clear to see, quite evident what had happened. The girl was marked, it would seem, and perhaps that mark carried more than what a cattle-brand would.

The powers of the mind, it seemed, had much yet to be discovered.

“The servant cannot deny the Mistress,” she muttered, more to herself than anything else - thinking of the countless times the Witch had said it over the years or more since the night Gérard had died. Then her eyes focused in on Lena’s; narrow, scrutinous. “Do you understand?”

“Y-yes, Mistress.”

Amélie’s lips split into a grin, the likes of which would have inspired envy in any shark, as she leaned in to plant a kiss on Lena’s forehead. “Good. There is nothing to fear here, you see, my pet - after all,” she shifted back, tracing the tip of her tongue around the lobe of Lena’s ear and enjoying the clear burst in heartbeat that accompanied it, “if I wanted you  _ dead, _ you would be a corpse already.  _ D’accord?” _

Though she hadn’t spoken a word of it, Amélie quite suspected that Lena  _ did _ know French. At least enough to get by, and a scant moment later her suspicions were borne out when Lena nodded with a heavy swallow.  _ “Oui, d’accord madame.” _

_ “Mademoiselle,” _ Amélie corrected sharply, and Lena shook her head slightly.

“ _ Mademoiselle.  _ Mistress.”

_ “Much _ better, that,” the Countess murmured with a grin, lifting Lena’s chin with a fingertip. “Come now,  _ ma chérie, _ let us go in. It is cold out here, and wouldn’t you rather have a nice fire to warm yourself by? Here, come here and I will make you happy again…”

Lena shivered as she tipped her head back, baring her neck - something deep in her wanted to recoil as she watched sharp, glistening fangs approach, but there was no way that she could. Nothing would override that command she’d been given to  _ stay _ , and so she stood frozen as fangs pierced her skin and her mind washed through with white.

It only took a quarter of a second, if that, for the pain to give way for pleasure - a thick wave of it, rippling out from her neck to every extremity. She always  _ had _ liked a cheeky nibble on the neck, and as her fingers wove into long dark hair again, she couldn’t remember quite why she’d been so bent out of shape a minute before.

_ “Much _ better,” Amélie reiterated, lips shining with fresh blood for a second before her tongue flashed out to chase it all down, and flicked out to trace the trail dribbling down Lena’s neck as well before she withdrew. “Is it not? Now, are we feeling more pleasant?”

“Oh, so much so, Mistress,” Lena confirmed with a sigh and a shiver and a happy little noise, her shoulders shaking in delight. “Thank you.”

Amélie laughed lightly, the sound ringing in the night like the fairest silver bell as she twined Lena’s fingers in hers and tugged her toward the house. “Yes, of course you are welcome. Now, come see your new home…”

 

\---

 

The feedings could not be  _ too _ consistent, that much was made clear quickly. From that first in the forest, Amélie figured she must have nearly drained the girl to death. The second, outside of the house, was only a taste - as much for Lena’s benefit as for hers, or perhaps even more.

She was a generous host, after all.

As they wandered through the Château, however, with Amélie showing off details to the starry-eyed Lena, there were more. Pressing the girl up against a tall statue of an adonis, or pulling her backward over one of the settees when the firelight flashed off of her neck and made it look just so  _ biteable. _

They were, by matter of requirement, lesser, though. Lena’s heart would stutter and flag almost from the start, and after a few solid gulps, Amélie needed to withdraw and press the rag to the barmaid’s neck again, or risk losing her newest toy.

It wasn’t terrible, but it was hardly ideal. Far more than what she’d had, hunting in the night piece by piece, but still hardly what one could call hedonistic. Still, the idea of snacking whenever she wished was a delight which she’d been lacking for some fair time.

Until, of course, she’d become creative. Any problem could be conquered given enough thought and study, enough careful planning - just like any hunt. It was a matter of knowing one’s prey, of knowing its actions and its desires, what baits and lures to use, what weapons. A matter of lining up the shot and taking it.

So she had done, and so she profited, freely drinking - if only  _ some,  _ if perhaps less than she would’ve liked _ \-  _ throughout the hours of Lena’s introduction to the house.

Amélie did not sleep. She had not, since the night her horse had fallen - not once, not for a moment, though sometimes she would let her mind drift during the long days where she had little recourse and no ways of leaving the walls of the Château for fear of the sun's rays. It was not sleep, but it was perhaps something close: a sort of trance which left her mind free to experience daydreams, if not to the same level of detachment as true sleep.

Lena, however, required it still. Even if she was capable of healing quickly now and seemingly shackled to Amélie’s will, the girl was still only human and required what they did. It had been long enough that Amélie had somewhat forgotten all those facets, though, and Lena’s sleep caught her by surprise at first.

Laying with the unconscious girl across her lap, though, both of them bared to the flickering firelight, Amélie stroked her fingers deep through spiky brown hair and let her mind free.

She wondered just  _ how _ frequently she could feed from the girl, and just how  _ much. _ She was quite curious about what extent her healing might have, and all the other effects as well. Lena still seemed to react much like any other human, but with so much more ease than the others.

Less like chasing a wild hare, and more like coursing a kept one.

Still, there were many upsides for the few unfortunate tendencies. Her blood may have been limited, but it was free. Her enthusiasm was enough to bring a smile to Amélie’s lips. Her body was warm in the way the Witch’s always was, but Amélie had no concern that the next moment might bring with it an absence.

No, the girl would stay here. She would  _ always _ be here, not merely always  _ return _ . For whatever Amélie wished, whenever Amélie wished, however Amélie wished.

Even if she might not have known in that moment what that might entail.

The next day was much the same. The Château was sizeable and with large grounds, and while not nearly all of it was displayed on their tour, a fair portion was. Almost all of the house, with the exception of the old Master bedroom - the one up at the top of the house, the tower, where Gérard had been killed.

Amélie almost never went up there herself anymore, and saw no reason for Lena to do so.

She fed in the kitchen, a room which had not seen use in years so plentiful that a layer of dust coated every surface and utensil. Dust that was disturbed by hands and breasts pressed down against the tables with such force to skid the table’s legs back along the stone floor.

She shoved Lena back against the library’s bookshelves with their frantically fingered tomes, and the girl got a similar treatment to those books as she cried out sharply in ecstasy and hot blood dripped down Amélie’s chin.

The wine cellar, where every cask had been untapped and bottle unopened for an untold amount of time now, but every one was kept immaculately free of dust - some small sign of desire or respect - Amélie fed there as well, and that was when she began to appreciate the true joy of having a kept hare.

There were a few glasses kept there, for tasting: fine crystal that she had kept clean and polished over the years. She had almost forgotten they were there, though, having not used them for so long - they had become, like everything else in the house, simply  _ things. _ Devoid of meaning or purpose due to lack of attention.

As Amélie’s tongue lapped at Lena’s free-flowing lifeblood, though, and the girl gasped in desperate delight under her grip, Amélie heard a clinking noise. The tasting glasses on their table, being jostled by Lena’s foot trying to find purchase as she spread her legs wide.

Amélie stopped and withdrew, looking over at the noise as Lena mewled sadly. With a grin, the Countess licked her lips and snatched up a glass, slipping her other hand into the heat down the front of the girl’s breeches.

“Hold,” she instructed, setting the crystal goblet in place against Lena’s neck. Thick trails of blood ran down it, over her collarbone and bared breast - Amélie couldn’t recall why the girl was wearing pants, given how much of a waste clothing seemed to be, but perhaps she’d grown cold. That was something that  _ people _ did.

Lena’s hand curled around the glass, keeping it in place where it cut off the trails of blood and began to capture them. The crystal began to fill, slowly, with the most exquisite vintage of a  _ red _ Amélie had ever tasted.

Or, at least, the second-most exquisite. The girl was vivacious and vigorous and it came out in her blood as sweetness and tang and power, but she still bore no comparison to the Witch.

Still, it would hardly help to think about the things one couldn’t attain.

Amélie’s eyes locked with Lena’s for a heated moment before she leaned in and down to lick away the trails of blood - starting down at the breast where the sluggish droplets still slowly tried to make progress, but she cut them off with her lips and her tongue before they latched around a nipple, and then followed the bloody trails up, slowly, to a collarbone. All the while, her hand continued to work intently in the girl’s breeches.

With her heart spurred on by Amélie’s attentions and hand, Lena’s blood came a little faster even as she did the same, grabbing a rough handful of the Countess’ hair as she stifled the outcries of her ecstasy with a rough kiss.

“Oh, god, I can taste my blood on your lips,” Lena whispered, almost whimpered, as Amélie withdrew.

The words, so familiar yet so different, sharpened the Countess’ mind in an instant. Sharpened her eyes, as well, narrowing and fixating on Lena’s from some small distance away.

The Witch had said that once, on a night which Amélie still thought of as the  _ first _ one. The first true night of her new life, when she’d discarded the final trappings of that old existence of being a noblewoman with a husband and had finally succumbed to- no,  _ embraced, _ her new existence.

Yet, there was something…

For a few moments of silence, there was no particular change; Lena continued to pant heavily, recovering from her orgasm as she continued to slowly fill the glass with blood, and Amélie’s mind seemed to run swiftly in place. It felt as if it was racing, but there wasn’t a thought in it - not one she could give word to, at least.

“...and?” It was the only query she could settle on, and it felt paltry even as she said it. It felt like something so small that she should be mocked for it, expecting that cruel and beautiful laughter the Witch always had when she was foolish or stupid.

“And I love it,” Lena groaned, resting her forearm on the Countess’ shoulder and gently tugging back toward herself. “Kiss me more? Please?”

Just one more moment, silent and still and sharp, as Amélie searched the girl’s face looking for some hint of the trap waiting to be sprung - but, then, she snapped out of it. The girl was just a girl, she  _ wasn’t _ the Witch. She was no clever mastermind, simply another human. She could never hope to compare.

However, when one spent so much of one’s time dealing with a tiger, as gorgeous and impressive as the beast may have been, there were perhaps upsides to spending some moments with a housecat instead.

Amélie’s hand found Lena’s at her side as she leaned forward, pressing her back against the stone walls of the wine cellar and giving ample opportunity for Lena to taste herself. Rough groans were stifled by lips locked together, tongues twisting and intertwining as Amélie lifted Lena’s hand and set it at her neck, two fingers covering the two puncture wounds, and she didn’t withdraw until she could feel Lena’s heart palpitating as her body cried out wordlessly for breath.

Lena gasped as soon as she was able, and the breath she stole so swiftly immediately came out as a whimper before she took another, and she looked back at Amélie as she continued to pant and sate her body’s basic needs for oxygen.

Amélie was just slightly discomforted by how much she could relate. That was, she thought, quite what it felt like to feed - that first triumphant gulp, and then another, another, another, and even if she willed herself to go more slowly, it was so difficult, so nearly impossible.

One could only hold one’s breath for so long. In time, the body would override and simply  _ gasp _ all on its own.

...the Witch had been right, of course. She’d been stupid to ever fight it, this hunger. The Witch knew best, she always did.

There was something else familiar in Lena’s gaze, too, almost. It was soft and adoring - it was almost like the Witch’s was in her gentle moments, when they came. Different, though. Lena’s eyes seemed almost clouded, hazy like a drunk’s would be. They were not clear and piercing, like the Witch’s were.

She was only human. She couldn’t compare.

Amélie lifted the glass out of Lena’s hand, away from her neck, holding her back against the stone wall with her other hand. She held up the glass and inspected it in the light; blood didn’t move like wine, but it looked surprisingly similar in some ways. It didn’t bead quite the same, but it did somewhat, and its  _ colour -  _ it was so deep, and gorgeous, and vivid.

Her mouth filled with saliva, but she forced herself to hold back. Held her breath, and swirled the glass, and the beads were so perfect; the clarity was absolutely magnificent, not the slightest hint of any particles of sediment within. She brought the glass down and inhaled.

Instantly, she had to hold her breath again to maintain her composure, but she did.  _ She _ was in control. She  _ was. _

It had an interesting bouquet, sharp and distinctive and instantly recognizable, and it brought with it a flood of thoughts and memories and feelings, and an almost overwhelming wave of hunger. Amélie’s jaw clenched tight, but still, she held her breath.

Slowly, so slowly, she tipped the glass of blood back for a sip.

Her resolve crumbled the instant it touched her tongue, and she tipped the glass back to drain its contents in a single long pull before she threw it off to the side where it shattered against the stones.

“Come,” she urged, grabbing at Lena’s hand and tugging her along. “There is more yet to see.”

Numerous more places to be christened with Lena’s blood, as well.

 

\---

 

Sleeping, it seemed, renewed Lena’s vigor. Sleeping or resting, intervals between feedings - after these, Amélie could drain for longer before she felt those now-familiar twitches of a heart nearing the point of failure, and that fact  _ almost _ made the waiting worthwhile.

Almost.

Still, each feeding seemed to drop the girl’s overall strength, and by the end of the second day Amélie was wondering whether this idea might even work. Perhaps there was simply no way to keep the blood, perhaps it would always need to be fresh-hunted; maybe it could only be delayed, but would always go wrong in time.

That certainly  _ felt _ accurate. It felt fitting, given everything else.

The next morning brought, again, freshness from the barmaid-turned-pet, and that lessened concerns. Amélie drank deeply from her coursing veins as Lena moaned and groaned and writhed on the couch beneath her. Amélie drew slowly - quickly enough to not be frustrated, but not gulping, just drinking and drinking and  _ drinking _ as Lena’s hands both worked almost desperately, one dedicated to each of their nethers, skilled and delightful.

Amélie kept careful track of her pet’s heart, the spiking rises that spoke of ecstatic orgasms, and at each one she gave a little added  _ nip _ on the neck just to reinforce. Every good pet should be trained, after all - positive behaviours reinforced with reward, negative ones punished.

In time, though, the girl’s heart began to strain and then to slow, and Amélie raised from her - holding her down with one palm pressed flat to the collarbone as she licked at her lips and sucked in a deep breath.

Lena stared up, feeling light in the head and practically burning throughout the rest of her body, hot and covered in a thin sheen of sweat with a high-pitched ringing in her ears as she slid her fingers free of them both. Her eyes caught intently on the red-coated, shining and sharp teeth behind Amélie’s grinning lips.

Her stomach grumbling diverted her attention, however, as it caught Amélie’s as well.

“Bloody good way to wake up in the morning,” Lena sighed, laying back on the couch and licking idly at her slick fingers, letting out a soft moan as she hoped that she would get to taste Amélie directly some time soon. “But I wouldn’t say no to a good fry-up, either.”

The Countess let out a sigh that was as wearied as it was contented, Lena’s warmth fading from her skin and leaving only that glorious metallic aftertaste as a lingering reminder of their morning’s activities. “Well, I have no food here. No use for it.”

“Uh… c’n we maybe head into town and get-”

Leaving was out of the question, of course, after dawn as it was, and Amélie’s eyes flashed to the window with the rising sun outside illuminating gardens that were once so gorgeous.

They were either dead or overgrown, now.

Gérard and she had put so much work into them, once - spending time and money planning, trimming, and hiring others on; their roses that had wrapped up over trellised arches, groomed and perfect, were now wild and vicious thorny things that left no indication of the wrought-iron forms underneath. The delicate imported flowers which required such careful tending, particular amounts of water with additives of this mineral or that crushed up and dissolved, now lay dead and withered to the point that she could not even see where once they had grown.

Only the memory of them remained, no actual trace. The same with the garden as a whole, the same with Gérard.

The same with herself.

“-something to eat? I mean, I don’t want to seem ungrateful, l- Mistress, but y’know I would love a bit o’-”

The girls was still speaking, speaking of  _ her _ needs with no thought toward Amélie’s, speaking of going out in the sun as if that was something that could be done. Of going out amongst the people and living, as if that was something that could  _ happen. _

“Oh  _ shut up,” _ the former Countess hissed, her eyes still locked out of the window for an agonizing second more before she pulled them away to the face of her new pet. Silent, as ordered, and laying there with a look of surprise, but Amélie hardly cared.

Amélie. The Widowmaker. Did it matter? Perhaps she had been the former, but she felt no connection to the name anymore. No, if she wasn’t to be  _ Gérard’s  _ Amélie… perhaps she wasn’t one at all.

Red blood stained the couch behind Lena’s neck, a further reminder of what they’d done and what she  _ was _ now, and it was entirely unfair the way that it looked so delicious. Even as some tiny fragment of her mind quivered in revulsion at the idea, she desperately wanted to  _ get _ that last spilled bit of blood.

“I will not be leaving the house.” She couldn’t, in the daylight - one more reminder of what she was now, what she’d become, what had happened to her. The Widowmaker, the creature, the monster.

She needed to feed more. It would kill the girl, surely, but what did she care? She could find another, and another, and another, and another...

“Go on your own. Speak of this to no-one. Say nothing save for what is required to arrange your purchases.” The commands were quick, snapped, decisive as the Countess’ eyes stayed fixed on that dark red spot. “Purchase plenty, whatever you wish, you may not return for some time. The larder can store much. There is some money in the cabinet near the front door.”

It was only blood.

Only blood, only food, only the only thing she could eat or drink anymore, and there it was just going to waste - soaking further into the fabric, she swore she could  _ see _ it spreading, and she swallowed back a heavy mouthful of saliva.

She’d just eaten. She didn’t need to debase herself by sucking spilt blood out of her furniture. It was disgusting to even think of it, revolting - the sort of behaviour one might expect of a  _ dog, _ not a Countess, not a woman of noble bearing and disposition.

Then again, perhaps that woman had died when her horse had fallen. Amélie was gone.

Perhaps, only her ghost had lingered, and perhaps it had grown weaker with every passing sunrise, and perhaps even the strongest remnant could only hope to last for so long.

...and perhaps, if she got down quickly enough, the blood would still be warm enough -  _ fresh _ enough - to be palatable, to be filling, to be delicious and hot and sweet and savoury, to sate that urge that stayed like a bitter pinch underneath her tongue and like a sharp grip in her gut, and perhaps-

Lena had not moved yet, and the former Countess’ slightly-crazed eyes met hers in an instant.  _ “Well?” _ The words came out hissed, harsh. “Cease your silence - what are you waiting for? You will be going on your own, now  _ go. _ If I wanted a pet that I had to walk and feed every day, you would have a collar and a leash.”

She didn’t think about the words in the slightest, not when she said them and not when she heard them - every part of her was focused on maintaining some tiny fragment of a semblance of decorum. Muscles held tight, joints locked in place like a statue as her fingers dug in sharply against the back of the settee and Lena struggled out from underneath her with a quick yelp of “Yes, Mistress,” and the whole while her eyes could only stay fixed on that dark, delicious, damp red spot.

The instant she heard the door close, she fell upon it, every scrap of her strength devoted to sucking out each tiny droplet of blood she could. Her saliva pooled and dripped, diluting the blood into the fabric, and small noises of frustration began to emanate from her nose as her goal slipped ever-further from her grasp.

Outside, the sun continued to rise on the wild and ruined remnants of the garden, and the Château as well. What in the night looked imposing and impressive, in the daytime’s light, carried distinct notes of a sad sort of weariness. Loose slate tiles on the roof and cracked glass windows, a clear derelict which looked less frightening and more simply decrepit, dilapidated, uncared for and unloved and unthought of.

Lena ran as swiftly as her feet would carry her, out down the front path and off toward the town, with a small pouch of old gold coins clutched tightly in one hand. Her mind, focused on the commands she’d been given, spared no thought for the garden through which she ran nor the house behind her.

She didn’t notice how the roses, though their bushes were overgrown and their thorns plentiful, still had gorgeous tightly-bound blossoms of red and white which almost glowed in the rising sun. She didn’t take note of the fact that the empty spots in garden pots had been overtaken by wildflowers of the region blooming in purples and yellows, splashes of colours amidst scraggly greenery.

She never thought of how much the sun glinting off of the rose’s thorns reminded her of the moonlight reflecting off of her Mistress’ teeth and fangs. There simply wasn’t room in her mind for it, alongside everything else. Alongside the commands and the orders, there was no room for  _ thought. _

As quickly as she could, she fled toward town, with only a select few things in mind, and first and foremost amongst them was how quickly she would be able to return. How soon she would again be in her Mistress’ eyes and her arms. How soon they would be reunited.

There was no room for anything else.


	5. A1S5: Weighed and Measured

**Act One, Scene Five: Weighed and Measured**

 

\---

 

It always seemed to be the way that the Witch was heard before she was seen. A stark contrast to that first night where she had appeared seemingly from nowhere, but now, her voice always drifted from the shadows as a herald.

Today, it was a laugh.

Small, soft, and gently cruel; derisive and pointed but in no way garish. A subtle laugh that still struck straight to Amélie’s core as surely as any rapier’s point.

 _“Hungry_ , are we?”

The Witch’s voice seemed to ring in her ears, it always did - in her ears and in her head, and it prompted Amélie to take a moment to silently note the state of herself. On her knees in front of the couch, naked, face streaked with blood and tears, her fingers tearing holes in the couch while she sucked at the fabric which had been soaked with Lena’s blood.

 _Had_ been. Past tense.

It was long since gone now, no blood left, and only the frustration of that lack in its place.

“I-I, I-” her words came out stammered, and they were weak, and _she_ was weak, and she knew it. She’d been a noblewoman once, a Countess, and now…

...now she was sucking blood out of her furniture.

“Bringing them back to the house now, are we?” The Witch’s voice was closer, nearer her shoulder, and there was a laugh. The Witch always showed up to taunt, and Amélie wondered whether she could see at all times - to know when were the most opportune moments to drop in, to catch Amélie at her absolute lowest points.

Sitting, hungry and alone, at the table. Glowering in the library with a wound from a silver dagger healing slowly in her side. Sucking up blood that wasn’t even _there_ anymore.

It was all gone, she’d chased down all of it, but still her tongue and her jaw seemed to move of their own volition and tried to draw more and more and more from the fabric.

There was none, though, there was nothing, only the bitter taste of old fabric and failure.

Amélie pushed herself back, and it took more strength than she thought it should have, but once the lingering hints of that metallic taste were gone, it was easier. She could breathe again, and she did, deeply and swiftly.

“There seemed little point in avoiding it,” she muttered, eyes closed and breaths quick as her hands stayed on the couch to keep her mouth from rejoining it. She could still smell it, she could still _smell_ the blood and taste it and she had to focus and strain her arms to keep herself from leaning forward again. “After all, who doesn’t prefer a meal in the comfort of their own home?”

“Oh, of course,” the Witch whispered softly, directly in her ear in a way that made her shudder and quiver. “And who does not hunt down every scrap of a pleasing meal, licking their plate clean like some kind of _child?”_

Amélie crumbled beneath the words and dropped her head until her chin met her chest, powerless to defend herself and _knowing_ it now. It had always been the case; she could not stand against what the Witch said. There was no debating with her, no defending. She was right, she always was. Undefeatable, it seemed. She had been this whole time.

“Oh, my dear.” The Witch pouted, sighing and turning Amélie around, fixing the holes in the settee with a snap of her fingers that caused fibres to right themselves and reattach and become dry. “Do you know how _disappointing_ this is to me? To come home and find you like this?”

Disappointing. She was a disappointment, and as much as she sometimes hated the Witch, she hated herself more for that. She was better than this, was supposed to be _more_ than this; she wasn’t some animal in the woods. She was a Countess.

Had been a Countess. _Had_ been.

Past tense.

“I… hate to disappoint you…”

Amélie, the Widowmaker, the former Countess Lacroix, kept her eyes downcast. She felt almost manic, within, but kept it suppressed as she stood. Held tightly against her chest. The many masks of a noblewoman - or a former one, at least.

It had always been required of her. One mustn’t be seen to be out of order at a ball or other engagement - regardless of the events in one’s life, one must always play one’s part.

When had she forgotten that? When had she let go of all sense of propriety and let herself fall to her knees?

At the same time as everything else, of course - or in the months since, or the years, or the decades. It was so hard to keep track of it, but she thought it more likely to be the latter than the former, since she’d first met the Witch and changed. Gérard’s remains were quite removed from the man he’d once been, and while she was no expert in the decay of such things and while she suspected that the _specifics_ of his death might have been a preservative of sorts, she still saw his withered reminder in the chamber of the tower as an indicator of the long time it had likely been.

“Do you _really?”_ The Witch’s voice held no warmth in it at the moment, only sharp distaste as she took a step backward and looked over Amélie with a gesture over her from head to toe. “Do you _really_ hate to disappoint me? Because, _my_ _dear,_ ” the words came out sneered, “it hardly seems like it. You seem not to be taking any care to avoid it, do you?”

The nights came more often than the days, lately - the Witch’s ire more common than her softness, and Amélie could only think that _she_ was the reason. Her failures.

She could only nod her head, though she wanted to say that she _had_ tried. She had left these walls in search of sustenance - only after being prodded, yes, perhaps, but she had gone. Gone and hunted like any good hound let off the leash, and upon her return she had been scratched behind the ears and offered a treat.

She wanted to say that she had tried. Tried to learn what she could, to avoid the barbs and lashes of the world - to keep herself in good shape, preserved for the Witch’s benefit and enjoyment. To keep herself safe out of respect for the one who had made her. Wanted to say that it was hardly her fault that some fool had gotten lucky with a silver blade.

Wanted to say much, but could not bring herself to, because she did not deeply believe it. How could she, standing here without even a scrap of cloth to shield her from the scathing chastisement?

 _“Honestly_ I don’t know why I bother sometimes,” the Witch sighed as she shook her head, her tone transitioning from irritation to tirade. “How often must I tell you?”

“-if you wanted a pet who you needed to feed and walk constantly,” Amélie supplied almost mindlessly, “I would have a leash and collar.”

“Yet _still_ you carry on requiring my _constant_ minding!” Mercy groaned, seemingly having forgotten the former Countess entirely. She turned away, gesticulating to the walls and the ceilings and calling out her frustrations to them, mindless of the once-woman behind her.

“Where is that beauty I’d once sought? That grace? You certainly have none of it any longer - is this some petty attempt at rebellion, trying to goad my frustrations and worsen my days? Some deliberate attempt to irritate me - or, even worse, are you simply this foolish? Which- ha! Oh, which should I even hope for, that you are an _idiot_ or a _brat?”_

Amélie shook her head, silently. It was nothing intentional, and it never had been - she’d never intended any annoyance, only tried to do the best with what she had, but she had failed time and time again as the Witch would always point out to her.

She realized that she was slumping, her chin on her chest; she couldn’t even seem to stand straight properly anymore, and she forced posture back into her spine as she gritted her teeth in anger at herself. She’d forgotten poise, along with it all. Along the road that had led her here, the one which led both to and from that cliff where her horse had fallen.

Except it was no road.

It was the Witch.

The Witch, who continued to berate her still, calling out complaints to the walls; the Witch who seemingly always had - she would take those moments to coo and caress and speak of her gorgeous catch, but it always came back to this chastisement in time. The days always gave way to the nights, and they were only ever so much colder and so much darker for the recent memory of light and heat.

Yet, she could not blame the Witch solely, for it was not _she_ who had held the silver blade. Was not she who had failed to pay attention to the path and let their horse run off the cliff. Was not _she_ who had been unable to hold their own teeth, or their own tongue, time and time again.

A misbehaving hound must be punished.

“Have you any _idea,_ ” the Witch continued, with no indication that she knew of Amélie’s thoughts, “how frustrating it is - to try to teach a hound who refuses to learn? To try to keep safe a creation who seems _determined_ to be damaged? To- to-”

Mercy let out a noise of frustration, turning back to fix the Countess with eyes that glistened with tears but were sharp as well, anger and sadness fighting for dominance in them.

“I am- _trying,”_ Amélie began to protest, but she was cut off swiftly.

“You are _failing,_ ” the Witch hissed through gritted teeth, anger momentarily winning over sadness, “what, do you think this _my_ fault? You will not blame _me_ for these things, _my dear!”_ Harsh words harshly spoken, anger taking dominance for the moment but, as tends to be the way with such struggles, the balance shifted shortly in the other direction.

Night always gives way to day.

The fulcrum tipped and sadness won out over anger, a single tear beading in the Witch’s eye. “Any idea,” she whispered with a shake of her head, “what it is like, to love one who doesn’t love you back?”

Since the first night, the first mention, Amélie had been unable to determine whether it had been a truth or a barb, a weapon or a feeling or both - whether the Witch truly did, or at least _thought_ she did, love her.

It certainly _hurt_ like a weapon. Hurt and disquieted and confused her, angered and scared her, regardless of the truth of it, because perhaps the worst part was that regardless of whether it was true for the Witch, Amélie couldn’t even determine whether it was the truth for _herself_.

Did she hate the Witch, who she sometimes cursed in the silence of the cold night? Did the Witch hate her, when her hand flew swift or her voice dripped venom and she left Amélie alone and unsatisfied and hungry on the floor?

Or, perhaps, was there love there? Could there _be_ both love and hate, or could perhaps the one sometimes look like the other - those beautiful moments when the Witch would meet her eye and call her beautiful, and Amélie would be unable to suppress a soft smile as she leaned into Mercy’s touch. Were those not love?

Those times when she sat frustrated in the taverns or marketplaces and no other could compare, not in the slightest to her Mistress, and when she would ignore them all and return home hungry of her own volition because there was no hope they could hold even a flickering candle next to the roaring fire of the Witch.

Could that be love?

She was no more certain now than she had been that first night, not for herself nor for the Witch - all those nights and all those moments, and not a one had revealed anything further about the Witch, the one they called Mercy. Amélie still knew nothing of her past, but she recognized some hint of the look in her eyes now.

She knew that, in a moment, the Witch would be gone once more. It would be night again, no warmth and no sun - and even a stormy day was preferable to nothing.

Was it not?

At that moment the Witch turned with a huff, shortly to disappear - but the Countess couldn’t let that happen.

“Wait,” Amélie urged, stepping forward and stretching out a hand, and when Mercy looked back, she thought at first that it might work as it had before. “Don’t, do not go. Please. I’m- I am sorry, I will try harder, I _will,_ I-”

The Witch’s face was soft at first, her eyes sad and hopeful as she held out a hand toward Amélie’s, but then it all became stony and shot through with steel as she shook her head. Narrowed eyes coupled with the motion shook loose a tear to streak down her cheek as her words, bitter and vicious, hissed harshly out of her.

“You only ever behave when I punish you,” Mercy spat, pulling her hand away from Amélie’s without them ever touching. “You only ever want me when I am leaving.”

Then she was gone.

No noise, no indication, no warning - just _gone_ , again, as she always was. No Witch. No warmth.

“No, no I-” Amélie pleaded with the walls, calling out in some hope she would be heard - yes, the Witch was a thorn at times and a still-bleeding wound at others, but despite it all, the Countess needed her. _Wanted_ her.

“Come back,” she whispered urgently, dropping to her cold knees on the cold floor. “Come back, please, that’s not true - I can be better, I _will_ be, I-”

Like a child pleading with a parent, a hound whimpering for its Mistress’ mercy, but everyone knew who was right in a situation like that. The child could not be permitted free reign, not without learning first - not without being taught, and Amélie felt just like such a child then.

Ungrateful, uncautious - it was her own fault that anyone had thought to carry a silver blade in the first place. Had she been careful from the beginning, the town never would have known anything was happening; had she not tried to intimidate and taunt them, she would never have suffered. Like a child burned by fire, she had learned her lesson - but, too slowly, it seemed.

The lesson had sunk in, but now the teacher was gone.

“Please.” Amélie sank lower onto the carpet, casting her eyes out at the windows, the doors - open or closed, locked or otherwise, the Witch never had seemed to care. She always entered, whenever she so chose.

She’d said she would always return, but a wave of cold fright washed over Amélie as she began to wonder whether that would still be true. Whether she had broken some contract or covenant; whether perhaps, Mercy might never again return.

Never again show up to darken her joy with taunts. Never again appear to caress her cheek and kiss at her neck. Never again strike her in anger or in passion. Never again hold her close in the night, and bare her throat to Amélie’s fangs.

Yes, the Witch was not without her thorns - but neither was any rose. Neither was Amélie herself and she knew it, and now she was frightened that she might never see Mercy again. Frightened and, a moment later, furious - at herself, at the Witch, at Lena - at every person whose face she could call to mind.

Amélie flew around the room in a vicious whirl, shouting and screaming emptily, but she spotted the settee even out of her fury. Every hole she’d torn in it was patched, every remnant of blood chased away, every damage she’d incurred wiped away in an instant by the Witch’s whim and her hand - and yes, sometimes those whims were cruel and sometimes that hand flew in anger, but could Amélie blame her for that?

She couldn’t.

No, she could not _possibly_ blame the Witch for it, and the anger came out at herself instead; she gripped the edge of the couch, tensed and poised to fling it against the wall to shatter.

She’d been a Countess once. She’d been _human_ once.

It had all fallen away along the wayside, everything that she’d once been. Everything Gérard had ever loved. Everything the Witch perhaps had as well.

Still unknown, perhaps _ever_ to be unknown if Mercy never saw fit to return - unknown, whether it truly was love, but Amélie knew one thing at least. If she did return, she would know her own words to be untrue.

She would know that Amélie wanted her, even when she was gone - that she could behave, even when not minded.

That she could be a hound worthy of treats.

With a hard sigh, the Countess forced herself to drop the settee back to the ground, taking a deep breath as she stood upright. The Witch was mercurial, yes, but not like a storm - not without reason. She rewarded good behaviour, and punished bad. It was very simple.

She would simply need to try harder, to be worthy of more _consistent_ positive attention. If she wished to be free of the cruelty, it could be attained. _Any_ goal could be attained, with study and careful planning, caution in execution, and the right tools.

It was just like the hunt.

 

\---

 

The sun was high overhead, drawing beads of sweat from the young woman’s brow as the horse laboured beneath her, but she hardly cared much for the beast’s comfort. It had been well-fed and well-watered before the journey, and would have a stable to rest in soon.

She’d give it an apple, too - a nice treat for all it had put up with.

The horse had been an unexpected upside, but the coins in that pouch had turned out to be worth much. At first laughed off as some old counterfeits at the market, Lena had frustratedly taken them to the goldsmith instead of the marketeers, and he had confirmed their veracity and their value. Pure gold, minted under the King before last, and greatly sought after in higher circles.

She’d had her pick of the market after that. Sacks of grain and produce, and she’d hardly spoken while it was all loaded onto the horse - another purchase from her unexpectedly full coffers. So few words, so little _time_ for words save for to urge people on faster and faster so that she could get back.

So she could return to her Mistress.

Lena shivered atop the horse as she heeled it in the ribs, urging it on faster as cresting a hill brought the Château into sight - there it was, and there _she_ was somewhere within, and Lena knew she needed to get back as quickly as possible.

She’d eaten on the journey as well, and drained an entire wineskin through parched lips. Brought back a bottle of wine from the market, as well. Amélie seemed to like wine.

Not as much as she liked Lena, though, and that thought had a goofy grin crossing her lips as the horse cantered through the main gates with heaving breaths. Lena swiftly wrapped the reins around a hitching post and dashed up the stairs to the front door. She didn’t bother knocking, just threw them wide and jumped through to toss the half-full coin purse onto the little table there.

“Sorry it took so long, Mistress!” She called out to the hallways as she slipped off her boots, tugging at laces on her breeches and tunic. “Didn’t wanna take the coin at first, the rotters, and then after-”

“You smell of horse.”

Lena spun around to see her on the landing above, at the top of the grand staircase - a tightly-fitted suit of some sort with long coattails accentuated an already impressive figure, and Lena’s heart began to quicken even more than it had.

“Ha, yeah,” she grinned widely, proudly, hands continuing to tug at her laces. “Figured I could get back quicker that way! Quicker was better, way I figured it, just fig- figured…” a frown crossed her features as she realized she hadn’t been told to buy a horse, really - whatever she wished, whatever she needed, yes, but she wasn’t sure now that a horse had ever been on that docket.

“Is, um, is that alright? The horse and all- I mean, I could maybe return it if-”

“You will not be returning it.” Amélie took a step toward the stairs leading down, studying Lena below her - she could hear the heartbeat from here, so fast and fervent, so furious. She wanted it.

She wanted to leap off of the landing, to slam the girl into the ground and drain her while she writhed and kicked; she wanted-

She wanted to be better. She wanted to be worthy.

“A swift return, a good idea,” she mused, softly, hoping words might distract her mouth from its salivations.

They didn’t.

Her hunger continued to twist and yowl inside her like some captive animal - _animal -_ and she kicked it back with a silent and invisible sneer as she forced her hands to release the bannister.

Lena grinned, wide and bright, gleaming with joy that she’d done well. “Thanks, Mistress - glad you agree! Now, erm-” she cleared her throat with a chuckle and then started to tug at the laces and fastenings of her outfit again.

A hand caught her wrist, and Amélie was there - inches away, despite the fact that she’d been twenty feet upward a second ago, and Lena’s heart caught in her chest at the proximity even as Amélie’s hand pulled her wrist away from her breeches.

“What are you doing?” The Countess - former, and hopeful - studied her hare closely, fingertips wrapped tightly against the woman’s pulse; it was so swift, so strong, she must have eaten, or slept, or whatever else it was that people did. Whatever the reasons, she was clearly of renewed vigor, and Amélie’s hunger ached to be unleashed against her.

Every thumping heartbeat did nothing to quell that hunger. It mewled and roared within her breast like a caged beast, and it must have escaped in some way or another - in a look in her eye or in some fashion exuded through whatever link she shared with this woman, because Lena started to get a goofy grin and tip her head off to the side, exposing her neck.

It looked so _good._

Bare, pale, bright - Amélie could _see_ the artery pulse in it beneath those two small bumps. No matter how many times she fed, it seemed only those initial wounds remained, but the fact hardly registered in Amélie’s mind.

If a whirling roar of hunger and lust could be called a mind.

She noticed that she was leaning in, lips parted as her mouth watered; Lena had started to pull off her clothes again, as well, throwing her shirt off to the side with a shiver.

It fell in a small pile, the way Amélie wanted _Lena_ to fall - limply, small, to the floor, bloodless; her mind and her heart and her everything raged with it.

She wanted to feed.

She wanted to be worthy.

She wanted to _feed._

She wanted-

She wanted-

She-

With a snarl, Amélie lashed out, shoving Lena backward with one hand and catching her across the cheek with the back of her other. “Pick it up,” she ordered, pointing to the fallen garment and trying not to fixate on how desperately much she wanted to hold that pulse in her hand again - but she knew that if she did, she would feed. She would throw Lena to the ground and fall on top of her, and drop right back to where she had been.

She was a Countess. She needed to be better than that.

“We are not _animals,”_ she hissed, refusing to let her teeth part from each other in the slightest for fear that they would find flesh.

Lena scurried like a struck pup, catching up her shirt from the ground and ducking in a deep bow as she pulled it back on. “Of course, Mistress - s-sorry, Mistress, I- I just thought-”

“Well, _don’t,”_ Amélie snarled, gripping tight fists close to her side. Lena’s heart raced in fear and worry; a new beat to a familiar tempo, and to stay at any distance from her was agony - all Amélie wanted was to dive into her hot blood again, but she couldn’t.

She had to be better.

“We will have a meal.” Amélie gulped back a fresh mouthful of saliva at the hopeful look that flickered across Lena’s face as her mind flashed with dark images of meals past. “At the table, like civilized folk. Go- go set the table and prepare it. Tell me when it is ready.”

Lena nodded swiftly, turning and dashing away to go about her assigned duties - her clothing still hung half-off and loosened, but she tugged the laces tighter as she ran, all thoughts or fears of moments ago pressed out of her mind by a new and more pressing directive. She had to prepare dinner - and she didn’t even know what Amélie liked! Other than wine, and her, of course.

The once and again Countess took three quick paces toward the door, with each one willing Lena’s heart not to beat so loudly - not to sound so very enticing down the hallways, echoing through every space of the Château.

It didn’t.

She stared at herself in the mirror near the entryway, not a hair out of place and not a button undone, and she urged her stomach to stop its groaning and grumbling, to cease its hunger and let itself alone for a moment of rest.

She inspected every detail, every facet of her outfit and her poise as closely as she could, from the set of her shoulders to the crafted look of placidity on her face, every part the perfect picture of a noblewoman, and she desperately wished that she could think about anything other than drinking, and drinking, and drinking, while hands probed under every garment and into every orifice.

As was so often the case, though, she did not receive what she wished for.

Every thought was red, bold brush strokes of tooth and claw painted in blood, sprayed over pale skin and smooth-hewn stone and tile and glass, linen and silk and skin, and she couldn’t pull her mind from it any more than she could have stopped her horse from falling after it had gone off of the cliff.

All she could do was succumb, and try not to scream.

Not a noise. Not a noise as her mind whirled, not hardly a movement. Stock-still, statue-like she stood, for interminable amounts of time until the call came from elsewhere. Lena, announcing dinner’s readiness.

Amélie’s eyes locked on their own reflection in the mirror, and there was the flaw. The gap in her perfect mask, because every thread and every hair was _just so_ , but in her eyes the illusion collapsed.

In her eyes, there was only hunger.

She was at the door to the dining hall as quickly as most people could blink, every one of her muscles tensed every moment it wasn’t actively moving for fear that they might start to move on their own and carry her to Lena for drinking and debauchery and delight.

There was a time and a place for that. There was a time and a place for everything.

She tried to remind herself of that.

The dinner was strange. Amélie sat at the head of the table, in her place, with a plate of inedible food piled before her and Lena at the far end, and with every heartbeat Amélie’s claws clenched tighter at the wood and she tried not to think about how she could have leapt the distance of the table’s length before even the next heartbeat, and have Lena’s blood painting her face.

She nodded to Lena’s stories and explanations - the food she’d bought, the horse, the trouble with the coins - but she could scarcely tear her mind away from the sound of blood rushing through arteries and veins.

Though she tried.

“Old, you say? How old?” The coins had apparently been some problem, and it was something to think about other than blood - although it did nothing to distract her. Any noblewoman was well-versed at carrying on an uninteresting conversation easily whilst focusing entirely on whatever held her true interest, after all.

“Yeah,” Lena nodded, pausing with a forkful of mashed potatoes halfway to her mouth. “Real old - didn’t even think they were real, at first. Apparently they’re from King Bertrand the Second’s reign?”

Amélie nodded; that had been his name, yes. Bartolo when he was born, Bertrand the Second when he’d taken the crown - he’d had a lazy eye, off-colour from his other one, a visible indicator of a nonexistent frailty which he used to his advantage in duels against any who tried to capitalize on what weakness they _thought_ they saw.

She’d met him at functions as a girl, when he was Bartolo, and later on as well. There had even been some talk, at least amongst her family, of her wedding him. It was entirely unlikely from the start, though, with her being two years his senior - it was always thought he would wed someone a decade younger, far more likely, as was the way of Kings.

He had surprised everyone and caused quite a stir in the courts by marrying a woman who was four months his elder, in the end.

“Indeed,” Amélie raised an eyebrow as some true curiosity managed to pierce through the hunger-lust. “Who is it now who sits the throne, his son?”

“Mm,” Lena shook her head as she swallowed a mouthful of food, “no, that was- he was King when I was just a li’l pip, he was, Kendrick the First. It’s _his_ son’s on the throne now: Bertholt. Although, looking a bit shaky, apparently. Can’t blame ‘im, bein’ that old - and with the war wounds and all.”

The Countess nodded blankly, considering. It was hardly surprising news and hardly meant much - sometimes Kings would change as quickly as outfits, so it was little wonder that the one she’d known was now so far removed. Yet, at the same time, it was his _grandson_ who held the place now, and that meant some at least.

“How long has it been, then?” Amélie’s query came out softly, carrying the impressive length of the table only due to her unnatural abilities and Lena’s particular bent toward _listening_.

Lena, unminding, continued to eat her food and drink her water and wine. “What, since Bertrand the Second? Uh, guess about fifty years since he died? Maybe more like sixty, I dunno - wasn’t exactly around back then, ha! ‘Pparently those coins do still show up sometimes though, someone’s had ‘em locked up in an attic or summat I guess. Probably like you did, eh?”

Fifty or sixty, since Bartolo’s death - and she could so easily recall his _youth_ , aligning so nearly with her own. How long he’d held the throne, she couldn’t say - could have asked, perhaps, but it hardly mattered.

He’d been alive when Gérard had.

Fifty or sixty years.

Lena was still talking, but the words fell past Amélie’s ears like the raindrops past the windows of the Château as her mind wandered freely, and it took her a moment to realize when the words had stopped.

Glancing to the far end of the table, she saw that Lena had pushed her empty plate off to the side and sat watching her.

“Aren’t you gonna eat, love? Mistress?”

Amélie’s fingers tightened against the wood of the table immediately, slight cracking noises revealing the true strength of the gesture as she took a deep breath. “I do believe I will,” she murmured swiftly, looking down at her plate for the first time.

A whole partridge, roasted, with a cherry propping its beak open - some little mockery of a suckling pig, and it was almost funny, almost cute. Mashed potatoes formed a bed for the bird and thick gravy covered the whole thing.

It had gone cold, of course, untouched. What had once surely been the glistening and crisp skin of the bird now sagged and looked wrinkled, and the gravy was thick and would have globbed if she’d touched it with any utensils.

Amélie pushed it quickly away from herself, only barely holding back from throwing the plate the length of the table; she could feel her every muscle wanting to unleash like a Huntress’ bowstring, tense and wanting to snap, and she knew that it would only be asking for disaster to push that to the very precipice.

“This food will not suffice.”

“Sorry, Mistress, I-” Lena swallowed back some gesture or word, regret etched into every line of her face, “I didn’t know what you’d want and- I’m sorry, I should’ve asked, and-”

“Quiet,” Amélie sighed, and Lena was immediately silent. _“No_ food will suffice. I can not eat these meals anymore - this was of benefit only to you. Now, you have eaten. Are you satisfied?”

Lena took a breath, then let it fall without speaking, and said her piece without words - with a long and longing look, instead, over the length of the table. It was clear what she wanted.

Amélie wanted it as well.

This was the dining hall, at least - this was the place for such a thing, for a meal, and this was the time for it as well. Everything had its time and its place.

Two or three more forcefully shortened breaths failed to sate her hunger at all, because there was only one thing which would. Only one thing which ever could.

“Come here.”

Lena was at her side in bare moments, practically sprinting around the table - they would need to talk about propriety and conduct, but now was not the time.

One was not meant to sit on the table, of course - but, a _meal_ is meant to be set upon the table, so Amélie instructed Lena to do so. She sat up on the edge and then leaned forward, twisting her head almost desperately off to the side as she tugged down at the hem of her shirt to bare her neck even further.

It was so _good._

It was the most triumphant taste of her life, and always had been, blood - that sharp sweet tang mixing with a mouthful of saliva as Lena let out an exultant cry; Amélie pinned her hands down to the table when they tried to reach for breeches and pants, but there was no reason to hold back with anything else.

Food and rest and water, they’d all restored the girl’s vigor, and Amélie drank deeply, deeply and swiftly and barely restrained herself from slamming the girl down and climbing on top of her, and barely kept herself from throwing the girl to the wall and dashing her against the stones to wring every drop of blood free that she could, and barely restrained herself from letting go of Lena’s hands and letting them plunge into their clothing as they so obviously wished.

She gulped, and gulped, and Lena’s moans and shouts grew louder and louder as her fingers curled against the tabletop underneath Amélie’s palms, and her heart raced and fluttered and then spiked with ecstasy even without a touch or a motion other than feeding, and Amélie could resist no longer.

“To the bedroom, my dear,” she hissed quickly into Lena’s ear, nipping at her earlobe. “You will clean up this table later.” Then she returned to the vein, lapping up what flowed slowly there.

“Yes Mistress, of course Mistress,” Lena moaned, and then shivered with a delighted noise. “Thank you so much, Mistress.”

Amélie chuckled into her neck with a grin, tongue flicking out to catch the rivulet of blood which tried to escape. “Of course you are welcome, my pet. Now, let us leave this room. We have concerns elsewhere.”

She let go of Lena’s hands, easily picking her up - Lena’s legs wrapped around her waist, hands flying to her hair and her back. Amélie caught up a napkin from the table and then was gone.

The Countess kept her focus on the neck, on the blood, as fingernails dug into her shoulders and her feet easily traveled the way to the bedroom, practiced and knowledgeable through years and years and decades of experience.

There was a time and a place for everything, but it was clear that time was no concern of hers - fifty or sixty years had passed without her knowing, almost, so what did she care if she had to wait for something?

There was a time and a place for everything, but the Château was vast, and surely _somewhere_ within its vaulted halls was the room for any given thing.

Amélie dabbed at her chin with the napkin as Lena opened the door to one of the many bedrooms, the one that had technically been intended for the highest of guests, but she was hardly going to go to the Master bedroom with its grim reminder.

“Red _serviettes_ , I think will be in order,” Amélie murmured with a chuckle as she looked down at the bright stain on the white fabric of the napkin.

It was, of course, unacceptable in a proper environment - but, anything could be overcome. Any goal could be attained.

With red napkins, there would be no stain, no indication of a meal’s mess.

With red napkins, she might be worthy.

“Some other day,” the Countess assured, calming the look of fright in Lena’s eyes. The girl didn’t want to be sent away so quickly - and of course she didn’t. Amélie couldn’t blame her for that.

Who would want to be without their Mistress?

“Some other day,” she repeated, stroking softly at Lena’s cheek as they approached the bed, and Lena turned into the touch and nuzzled at her hand, warm skin and warm gestures.

Some other day, red napkins. Some other day, dusting the shelves and placards - some other day, weeding the garden, some other day.

Not that day, though. As Amélie fell forward, pinning Lena back against the bed as she in turn tugged the Countess’ buttons loose and Amélie dove into blood and heat again, there was only one thing left to do.

Waiting and propriety had their place, but she was finished with denying herself anything she wanted.

They shouted and hissed each other’s names, hands and fingernails roaming and dragging - pulling at hair, digging crescents into skin, and sometimes Amélie forgot her own strength and her claws would puncture Lena’s skin, but Lena never complained - she only cried out all the brighter in delight and Amélie would lap up the incremental upwellings of blood with a grin as she listened to the frantic tempo of Lena’s heart.

There was nothing wrong with it. It was, after all, the bedroom - and it was night, and they were alone, and it was not untoward at all.

“Red sheets as well, I should think,” Amélie sighed as she lay back on the bed, Lena curling in tight next to her, warm and soft and close, atop sheets that looked - quite fittingly - like a murder scene.

Vibrant splashes of blood soaked them through, and handprints of the same smeared over the previously pure white silk. They would need to be thrown away, of course - as had her clothes she’d worn the first night of hunting, and so much else along the way.

There was a benefit to discarding what one no longer needed, though. It allowed one to make space for things which _were_ of use.

Lena only nodded, humming softly next to her - agreeing, of course, she was very agreeable, but also very sleepy.

Amélie listened to Lena’s heartbeat, soft and thready after the night’s stresses, as it lengthened and slowed into a restful sleep, and she stroked her fingers deep into short warm hair and began to compile a list.

Red sheets, red napkins, perhaps some other things for dining - servingware of some sort. More regular trips would likely need to be made for Lena’s food, anyway, and it would be easy enough to pick up other things along the way.

Cleaning supplies, new curtains to replace the old which hung with dust and moth-holes - and clothing, as well. Lena would need something finer, tailored; and perhaps Amélie was in need of a new outfit or two as well.

Gardening tools.

All the things it would take to restore the Château, and herself as well.

...and _then,_ she would be worthy.

 

\---

 

 

 

**END OF ACT ONE: THE LONG FALL / THE PREY IS SPOTTED**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there's Act One - and how are we all feeling, hmm? I hope you are enjoying yourselves, my dears - that is why I do all that I do, after all.
> 
> Vampiric inspiration I drew from many sources: Anne Rice's "Interview", Christopher Moore's "You Suck" and "Bite Me", Bram Stoker's coveted original of course, even a few bits from Stephen King - a collection of short stories of his, "Nightmares and Dreamscapes", included a few mentions of Vampires which I drew some hints from as well. Thematic lines from "Sweeney Todd" and the "Blade" trilogy as well, for certain elements, as well as Burton's "Dark Shadows" I'd say, and probably some I didn't even necessarily intend to pull from - but I think that's what happens.
> 
> A note worth mentioning: I started writing this all before this year's most current installation of Junkenstein's Revenge, in which they added Tracer as one of the selectable heroes with a backstory of her being a "Will of the Wisp" caught between realms. None of that is going to be drawn upon in this particular story because I didn't know it was going to be happening, of course; it would've been quite fun to develop the story with that in mind, but alas, it was a little too set-up by the time I found out.
> 
> (Also, for those of you who've been wondering why I haven't been updating other notable works of mine, yes this is in fact what's been sucking up most of my writing energy since I finished with that Zine; I've also had a lot of life occurrences, but my wife can now work and stay in the country so things are on the up and up - all in all, it's been a hectic time, and what little writing I've been able to do has all gone pretty solidly toward this. I can only hope that it's worth it, and say that I will most certainly be getting back to my other things soon, don't fear)
> 
> I'm very curious about feedback on this one. Not to sound too Count Rugen about it, but... how does this make you feel?
> 
> Act One is complete (with a different moniker tagged on the tail end of it, you might have noticed), and the stage is nearly set. Every Act will bring new characters and new conflicts, but of course, to preserve surprise, I won't be saying which ones.
> 
> Unless, perhaps, you ask very nicely - or maybe make me an offering, my dears. After all, I am a gracious host, and any deal can be struck for a price...
> 
> J.


	6. A2S1: From Hare to Harem

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Act Two begins with the Witch notably absent, having left in fury and a flurry of accusations; Amélie, in her absence, has resolved to do more - to try harder, to be worthy of attentions and love. To avoid the animalistic urges of herself, and find some way to reattain her greater status as a noblewoman.
> 
> There is more to nobility than ones abode, after all, and even _that_ does not mean what it once did. The Château sits somewhat in ruin, but Amélie has resolved to fix that.
> 
> That, and so much else, with Lena's aid - but of course, she will not forget what she is, not deny her Mistress' gift; she will still feed, still be the Vampire which she is.
> 
> Only strive to be a better version of one.

** ACT TWO: THE SUDDEN COLLISION **

 

 

 

 

**Act Two, Scene Two: From Hare to Harem**

 

\---

 

The red sheets looked good on the bedspread, but they no longer matched with the four posters that hung above it - new ones would need to be purchased, in red as well, or perhaps some dark colour to keep out any of the sun’s errant rays which snuck past the curtains.

Lists became commonplace. Lena always had one in pocket, and a pencil as well, and as she followed Amélie around the mansion and was instructed on this and that, she would jot down reminders of what was needed.

She wasn’t a builder, nor particularly a craftsperson. Not overly well-versed in woodcutting or hammers and nails, but she could clean well enough and at least attempt much of the rest - and she gladly did attempt at least.

As it turned out, however, Amélie didn’t seem to have much interest in _fixing_ most of what was damaged anyway. Lena spent an afternoon trying to repair the broken leg of an elaborately carved wooden chair, one day, and was surprised when Amélie strode through and flung it into the fireplace instead.

“It is _broken,_ _chérie,”_ she’d purred, stroking at Lena’s chin with a finger as the flames rose to engulf the chair. “Do not waste your time trying to save it.”

She’d listened, of course.

There was no point cooking anything for Amélie, so Lena didn’t bother after that first night - she just made something for herself and ate it swiftly while the Countess watched so that they could get to the truly enjoyable part of the evening.

_Feeding._

Even thinking about it sent a little thrill up her spine, a warm fuzzy feeling under her scalp; she always had enjoyed a cheeky nibble, but Amélie had been right that first night - this was not the same thing.

Lena sighed softly during lunch, Amélie’s teeth buried in her neck and hands pulling loosely at her back - she’d been told not to be too loud, not during feedings, and while that wasn’t the most fun she was happy to comply of course. She just sat there, squirming softly and quietly climaxing as she bit her lips together and Amélie’s tongue flicked at her neck with mouth locked on tight.

Sometimes, Amélie wanted something fancier. Usually at night, usually for dinner, and Lena was delighted to go along with that. At first it was fairly simple, holding a glass to her neck and letting it fill with blood, but she always preferred Amélie’s mouth instead.

The next night, she decided to try something different: wearing a lower top that bared her shoulders, she’d cut herself with one of the kitchen knives and drizzled blood along her collarbones and up her neck.

Amélie had supported the idea wholeheartedly, making her approval clear through sharp teeth and firm grip, and a prompt trip to one of the mansion’s many bedrooms.

Those were Lena’s personal priorities, when it came to the cleaning and fixing up, and Amélie was sure to christen every single one the moment it was finished - to go there and throw their clothing to the ground and give in to the urges that plagued them, and steep the room in moans and shouts and sweat and blood.

“What is the point in having them, these bedrooms,” she’d explained, whispering deep into Lena’s ear with her fingers just as deep in Lena’s nethers, “if not to enjoy them?”

“Of course, Mistress,” Lena had hissed in reply, back arching as she groaned out her pleasure to the freshly-painted ceiling.

Red sheets for every bedroom, of course, and dark treatments for any of the floors which had light rugs or wood or stone - it was key, to hide any spilled blood.

Every week was a grocery trip. The first had been only food and water and the horse, the second brought sheets and curtains and clothing as well as the provisions, the third had an assortment of odds and ends.

Lena dreaded those days - the journeys into town on horseback, frustratingly alone; the hours spent there from shop to shop, irritatingly without Amélie; the _return_ which was agonizing for its anticipation. They were terrible, awful times, any time she was forced to leave the Château.

The only advantage of the trips was that, on her return, Amélie would always be waiting to whisk her away into a bedroom for a particularly frenetic session of blood and hands and heat.

The worst part, really, were the little voices in her mind - the ones that reminded her, sometimes, when she was in town and far away and had been for hours, that there was a time when fangs had been frightening.

The harsh hisses that said she should fear, should flee, should fight.

The whispers that urged her that bleeding was _bad._

She hated those voices, those reminders, those quiet urges in the silence at the back of her mind that appeared only in absence, and she was always so glad when Amélie’s sharp-toothed smile would wipe them away when it met her skin.

 

\---

 

The Countess still left the Château in the nights, still searched for other food, but it was admittedly less pressing than before.

Less pressing, but still no less pleasant. In fact, the latter far _more_ so for the former. The fact that she did not hunger as deeply was a benefit, because she did not _need_ to hunt.

It let her enjoy the act far more.

Lena was very good to have around, but there were some urges which could not be sated on her. If Amélie let herself get carried away, she would kill her hare and be without her pet and without her sure food.

That was an irritating concept.

As had been the case for so long - decades, it seemed - Amélie took out her irritation on what she could, and now that she herself had been removed from that list, it numbered only one single entry: the town nearby.

She no longer needed to hunt for sustenance. No longer was she hunting deer, no, now they were foxes.

Now, it was a matter of pleasure.

Lena was a delight, but she so rarely _feared_ anymore, and Amélie had developed a soft spot for that particular taste to blood - for that particular tempo of the heart. Lena was a delightful meal and more, but there were certain things of which she was simply incapable.

The town, however, provided.

Amélie was careful, always so careful, and she did not prowl their nights as an animal. No, there was no beast in their woods and they came to know it - she was a Huntress, clever and quick, and she treated them as such. Treated them as prey.

For trophies, of course.

They had no horns nor antlers for her to mount and they would provide poor hides, but there were trophies to be taken still; necklaces and rings and bits of jewelery, and bright coats instead of furs.

When she walked among them with her cloak-hood up, she heard their whispers and felt their fear, and it made her feel _powerful._ Yes, she could have remained invisible, but what would she gain through that? Only safety, and she had nothing to fear.

She was no animal to be scared away by some _humans._

One night when the moon was particularly high, its gleam catching her brass buttons in the night, she sat on horseback with her head cocked, listening for any indication. When one came to ear, Amélie spurred on the horse - far slower than she would have been on foot, of course, but that was hardly the point.

A horse is what one rode during a fox-hunt.

The young man yelped as he raced through the forest - released from the Château, as one would do with any fox - and she urged the horse on faster and faster. Yes, without the beast lumbering beneath her, she could easily have leapt from limb to limb through the forest and silenced the fool’s cries, but where would be the _fun_ in that?

A fox hunt was only a joy if the fox might escape. It must be a wild animal, caught and caged and brought back to the lodge - it must be released and given a head start, desperate to return to the woods and its barrow and hide away.

So it was that night, albeit with perhaps a larger and more upright quarry than normal.

The man was more obvious than any fox she’d ever tracked, and she thought that she would need to give a longer lead next time - give them more of a head start, because tracking him proved no difficulty at all. She had no beagles and had no need for them.

There was plenty of hound to this particular Huntress, after all.

Once he was found - as is always the case with foxes caught - it was over. There is never much that they can do to fight, and she drained him to a limp corpse before taking his pocketwatch and standing, blotting at her lips with a red kerchief produced from within her coat.

Another successful hunt.

She left the body there for the forest to deal with, and slipped his pocketwatch into her coat as a trophy in lieu of antlers - but then, another noise caught her ear over its ticking.

It sounded like fear. Fear and fright - a shout, a scream - and then a howl.

The horse leapt when her heels dug into its ribs, and she swung out her rifle on its sling, a grin splitting her clean lips in the moonlight.

Perhaps the night had more joy yet to provide.

 

\---

 

Teeth in the moonlight, sharp and glistening - that had been the first sight, flying from the bushes.

The young woman, red hair tied up high to keep it from her face and straying further than was generally considered wise from the town, barely had time to fall to her knees as a dark shape bowled overtop of her with a snarl, and she cut her knee on the stones of the rough forest path. There was no time to stop and tend to it, though - she had to run.

They’d said she was stupid to go out here at night. Said she was inviting death on her head to leave the town when the sun was down, but she hadn’t cared.

She’d needed to find Lena.

Now, though, the only thought in her head was fear as she ran, every breath deep and full as her eyes stretched wide in the moonlight - two small glows off to the left spoke of a pair of eyes and she dodged again, something sharp catching the arm of her coat and tearing at it but not finding her skin.

Growls and snarls and snaps sounded at her heels, making her chest and her heart tighten and her breaths shallow out, but she caught up a large stick from the side of the road and swung around with it as she heard a particularly harsh and guttural cry - she struck something heavy, blindly, and continued to run.

In the woods, though, one never escaped the beasts. It was their place, their domain, and she should have known there was no escape from them.

Something grabbed her heel, pulling it back and making her stumble and fall. She twisted as she fell, holding up the stick to catch a pair of jaws that sprung at her face - bright and glistening teeth in the moonlight, impossibly sharp and standing out in bright contrast to the dark face that contained them.

The wolf bit down tightly against the stick, yanking backward and trying to wrest it from her grip - trying to render her defenseless, even as its compatriots circled around to try to attack her from the sides or behind.

The gunshot, when it came, was such a shock that she didn’t process it.

As the beast’s full weight fell upon her she screamed, shoving out with stick and feet and every scrap of strength she could manage - she twisted at the sound of another loud crack and underbrush moving, and tried to move to no avail, and then the wolf pulled free from her and she lashed out with the stick.

It was caught, solidly and suddenly, and it was only after that that she actually saw what was happening and what _had_ happened.

The wolf sat off to the side, quite dead with a dark pool of blood spilling out from it across the path, and its two compatriots were gone from sight - the stick which she’d held as an improvised weapon was clutched at the other end in one hand, by a woman who wore a coat with bright brass buttons and long tails, a red vest, and held in her other hand a rifle which still trailed smoke from the tip of its barrel. Pale skin and a slight smile, and incredibly striking golden eyes.

Without another thought, she dropped her end of the stick and rolled forward to wrap her arms around her saviour’s legs and high leather boots.

“Thank you,” she croaked hoarsely, “thank you so much, I- god I thought they were going to kill me, thank you, I-”

“Shh, shhh,” the stranger with the rifle purred, kneeling and stroking at the back of her head. “Do not worry about _them_ now, _ma chérie,_ I have you now. My name is _Amélie…”_

 

\---

 

She was young. Young and about to be devoured by wolves, and Amélie would be damned if she let some thoughtless forest beasts beat her to a meal.

This was _her_ land. They were poaching her game, and she hated poachers.

A rifle shot felled the first one to send it crumpling onto the young woman, the redhead who they pursued - Amélie stepped out from the underbrush to let off another shot as the other two wolves turned to run, and one of the pair tumbled limply to the path.

The third, she let go, with a silent command to flee and tell the others.

Approaching the fallen woman, Amélie shoved the wolf off with a foot, and was surprised to see a stick wielded as a club flying out toward her face. Surprised, but not to the extent that she was struck - no, she caught it firmly in her hand.

The humans were just as foolish as the beasts, really, thinking they could do anything against her wishes.

Perhaps, though, this pitiful thing had not intended anything of the sort, nothing hostile, because she shortly collapsed forward and wrapped around Amélie’s legs like a child finding their mother after becoming lost at the marketplace.

“Thank you,” the redhead croaked, “thank you so much, I- god I thought they were going to kill me, thank you, I-”

Her heart beat swiftly, delightfully in fear, following that staccato tempo of terror - but, Amélie knew it was not fear of _her_ and it felt less like a victory for that. It was less of a joy for the fact that it was only some beasts which had inspired it.

Perhaps she would show this girl what _true_ terror was…

“Shh, shhh,” she smirked as she comforted the woman, crouching down to stroke at her warm hair. “Do not worry about _them_ now, _ma chérie,_ I have you now.”

It was _she_ who the lost traveler should fear, it was _she_ who owned these lands and these woods, and it was _she_ who would be triumphant in prowling them tonight. The heartbeat started to slow but strengthen, heating with joy and excitement - a delightful cocktail which Amélie always enjoyed, and one of her favourite things about feeding on Lena.

This one sounded like she might not be too different.

“My name is Amélie,” she murmured, leaning down further until she was almost doubled over the hunched woman. She took a deep breath, her eyes opening wide as her nostrils filled with the smell of blood - a cut, seemingly, or some wound from those wolves which let her blood free to the surface to spread its alluring scent.

Blood, and a perfume.

One which she recognized, if not explicitly - she didn’t know by name the flower which lent its fragrance to that perfume, but she recognized it through experience and contact. While it had faded substantially in the time since her arrival, Amélie still recalled its notes from her introduction to Lena.

Mixed in faintly with that perfume Lena herself had been wearing, it had lingered for days afterward - at least until her first trip into town, fading the whole time as it was painted over with hints of blood’s tang and sweat’s sharpness - but Amélie recognized it still.

It was a scent that had become quite associated with hunger, with feeding and with lust. Amélie’s mouth filled with saliva, almost to the risk of overspilling, and she licked her lips in the moonlight.

“Th-thank you, Amélie,” the young woman nodded, starting to get herself under control, and the Countess didn’t really approve of that - of the way her heartbeat started to slow, gradually decreasing in fervor. “I-I’m Emily, I-”

“Emily,” the Countess, the huntress, cut her off swiftly with a deep breath that filled her lungs and her mind again with that heady mixture of flower’s sweetness and blood’s tang. “Pretty name. Pretty name for a pretty girl.”

“Th-thanks miss, I-”

“You’ve cut yourself, Emily.”

In an instant - immediately enough that the shock of it sent the young woman’s heart spurring on faster again, a fact which had Amélie grinning - the Countess pulled Emily to her feet, laying a hand on each shoulder and leaning in closer.

“You must be careful, _chérie,”_ Amélie whispered in her ear, sharp-toothed grin shining bright but unseen in the moonlight. “There are many… _ravenous_ creatures which one might attract from this forest, walking around with the scent of _blood_ as you are.”

Emily, startled, moved to withdraw slightly - just a bit of a lean, not enough to actually test the Countess’ grip - before some noise from the forest had her eyes flashing that way and frightened her into leaning closer into Amélie’s embrace instead.

A good thing, for her; not to test the Countess’ grip. Not to try to escape.

They never managed to escape.

“There, there,” Amélie murmured softly, wrapping her arms tighter around Emily for a moment and taking another deep breath. That flower, whatever it was, paired delightfully with blood; it was simply exquisite, the way the notes complemented each other - and the girl was so warm, so soft, so _scared._

Her heart. Amélie could _feel_ her heart, even through two coats and other layers of fabric, even with Emily’s racing pulse having subsided somewhat from its former fearful pace, even with all the circumstance of existence and the night as well, Amélie could feel her heart.

“It is alright,” the Countess sighed, tasting the slight hints of Emily’s perfume and blood-scent on her tongue as she exhaled, and it made her salivate all the more. Delightfully debauched and degraded images danced through her mind, all the glorious things she could do with this poor young thing out alone in the forest.

Or elsewhere.

“You can come with me,” Amélie assured, surely, certainly, firmly and definitively - not a suggestion, not really, even if the words may have made it sound as such. “Ride on the back of my horse, my home is not far and there is a warm fire, and heavy doors to keep out the… rampant beasts.”

Emily only nodded, never thinking of what else doors could do - never considering that, sometimes, a lock’s purpose was as much to keep _in_ as to keep out, and never questioning which she was signing her name to.

There were beasts in the forest, that much was clear, and she was only taking the surest option she saw to avoid them.

A beast would never _invite_ one back to its lair, of course.

 

\---

 

“What is it that brings you this deep into the forest, at this time of night, _ma chérie?”_

It had been silent thus far, their journey - Emily jumping at every forest noise or distant howl, and Amélie grinning at the accompanying leap in her heartbeat whenever she did. After a time, though, it became repetitious and dull.

Everything did, in time. It required creativity, to stave it off.

As all things did.

“I’m- well, I was um, kinda looking for someone,” Emily admitted softly, her eyes dropping to her hand as she reached into a pocket and pulled out a trinket. A small pendant on a red ribbon, a wooden token carved roughly into the shape of a heart.

Amélie twisted, glancing back as best she was able - the horse knew the way, and trotted dutifully along the forest path toward the Château. “Oh? Who would that be?”

With a shrug, Emily dropped the carving quickly back into her pocket - but her hand followed it, taking up on some urge not to be parted from the token, the trinket, the little thing which she felt might still connect her with the one she missed.

“Her, um,” Emily cleared her throat, trying to stave back tears. “Her name’s L-Lena, she- she went missing a while back. Few weeks ago, didn’t say a thing, but- she- then somebody said they saw her at market, and by the time I got there she was gone, and then- then… I don’t know…”

She started to cry - quietly, at first, and still. Soft. Tears beaded up in her eyes and spilled over to trail down her cheeks. They’d said, when Lena first went missing, that she’d been attacked. That she was never coming back, just like none of them came back - that there were beasts in the forest.

...and there _were_ beasts in the forest, and Emily knew that now, and holding on to hope was so much the harder with that fact lodged in her mind, the memory of teeth flashing in her eyes, and pain stinging at her knee where she still bled from the rock.

Quietly, at first, she cried. Moments later, more loudly, as the sadness and pain sunk in more thoroughly - spreading from her wound and her mind and her heart at the same time, meeting in the middles in tumultuous messes of ripples colliding. Her shoulders started to shake and sobs began to escape, soft but building.

Amélie reached back a hand blindly, patting at Emily’s thigh with a soft smile. She’d suspected from first scent that this woman was Lena’s former likely-lover, the one she’d smelled on her upon their first meeting. She’d thought about what she might do, were it to turn out to be true.

She hadn’t quite decided, though.

The girl would certainly be drunk of, that much was clear. Amélie hadn’t put in all this effort of saving her and comforting her to go without food - and the constant lingering scent of blood had tossed her dormant hunger into a near-frenzy, roiling in her gut like a coiled serpent constricting some hapless prey.

She was no slave to her hunger anymore, though. At the least, that was _one_ thing she was not slave to.

The question, of course, would be whether the girl could be permitted to survive.

The Château had plenty of rooms, and there would be advantages to having another body around. Twice as many people meant twice as much feeding, and that concept alone was enough to have Amélie grinning - not to mention the other advantages in terms of maintenance, or even other returns to former form.

One could hardly call oneself distinguished with a staff numbering only a single member, of course.

The thought of her, of Emily, dressed up in uniform alongside Lena - the two of them attending to her, goblets of blood and bared throats at the bathside or climbing in to share their warmth - had crossed her mind.

There were, however, quite more jealous thoughts as well.

Sharp ideas of Lena’s distraction with her former lover had become theoretical weapons with which she’d slowly dissected the redheaded newcomer in her mind, but there was perhaps only one thing to be done about it - simply, to see how her hare reacted.

“The night may yet hold some hope, _chérie,”_ Amélie assured softly, her slight smile widening as Emily leaned forward and clutched at her tightly, and the warmth of her soaked through their clothing so easily, it seemed.

She only could draw that from a body, these days - warmth. Could only drain it as blood, from one whose heart still beat true and strong; no fire or steaming bath or thick blanket would suffice, unless there was a swift-flowing current of life within arm’s reach.

Arm, or tooth.

The Countess realized that she was baring her teeth at the moon - not simply smiling or grinning, but baring her teeth wide as if in defiance or threat or promise, and she thought perhaps it might be all three.

She was finished with denying herself anything, and woe betide any who crossed her or tried to refuse - but there was a time and a place for everything.

A fox hunt was always a joy, but to find new game on the return - and such a prized catch, as well?

There was hardly anything better.

 

\---

 

Lena glanced up toward the door when she heard a noise, hoping that it would be her Mistress returning - and it was, to her delight. She took a gasp to call out, but Amélie put a finger to her lips and Lena was swiftly silenced.

“Do not be loud, my pet,” the Countess instructed as she crossed the stable to the stall which Lena was mucking out in her absence, “but I have found something that may be of interest to you. You know that… silly pendant of yours?”

Lena blinked, frowning for a moment - it wasn’t pleasant to think of _before_ she’d arrived, really, but she did remember the necklace of course. She still carried it in her pocket, instinctively - still even donned it as well, unless she was told otherwise or was concerned about it getting damaged or too bloody.

Not because it would cause the thing any harm to get blood on it, but it seemed like poor form and all.

The Countess had seen it, seen her pet putting on the pendant when she dressed in the mornings or to return to her duties, and she’d thought nothing much of it. A carved heart of wood, a simple enough affair - hardly very effete. Hardly refined.

Hardly of any concern, or almost any thought beyond simply the details a huntress’ eye noted.

That, though, was precisely the point of noting a detail. One never knew which one might prove important.

Amélie had seen it, the little hand-carved thing, and she’d thought little of it save for that, perhaps, when she arranged for finer clothes for Lena, a finer pendant should be arranged to match. One of gold, with perhaps a gemstone or two - no silver, of course - and she’d begun to detail instructions to be given to the jeweler, to accompany those she’d meant for the tailor.

Now, though, she thought much more of that little trinket.

Lena slipped a finger into the collar of her shirt, producing the familiar shape as her frown deepened. “What’s- what’d you find, Mistress?” She kept her voice soft, as she’d been told to do, but it was clear from her tone that she was worried.

Clear from her heartbeat as well, sounding sharply in Amélie’s ears; the staccato drumbeat of anxiety rising as the Countess reached into her pocket without a word.

She pulled out a red ribbon, with a similarly carved wooden heart strung from it, and she watched as Lena’s hand trembled on her own - as it clutched at the token, firmly - and she heard the shift in heartbeat. The skip. The twist.

“Emily?” Lena’s voice was soft out of no command, no instruction - given any free will in the world, that word would have been just as bare, just as whispered. It was simply the most she was capable of.

“The forest is a dangerous place,” Amélie murmured, leading but not delivering - providing the seed of a thought, perhaps, and waiting to see what it grew into.

“Sh- she-” Lena gulped back fear and tears, looking in concern to Amélie’s eyes - such gorgeous eyes, and she was always so helpful, too. She always made the voices go away, and she’d help with this too - of course she would, she always did. “What happened, wh-what…”

The slow gaze of a huntress studying prey is a subject of which much has been made - portraiture and poetry and song, all seeking to capture the calm focus of it. Be it a naturalist speaking of a hawk’s eyes upon a mouse, or a courtier propounding on the gleam in a schemer’s eyes as they plot their coup, it has been a subject of much focus.

Nearly as much focus as Amélie directed at Lena, in fact; every heartbeat, every twitch of her eye and her hand - as if the hand could, by virtue of squeezing at that wooden token, revive her lost love or form some link with her. As if, by fretting at her pendant, Lena might be able to determine the fate of its mate’s owner.

The eyes, though, those were what held the Countess’ focus the most.

 _Desperate_ eyes.

Desperate for Emily, yes, but also desperate for _her_ \- for Amélie, for her to help and for her to answer, for her to do something to make everything better as she always did for her pet. Any time Lena started to fret, any time she started to worry or pain, Amélie was always there to make it wash away into joy and pleasure again.

“You promised yourself to this woman?” It wasn’t a question she necessarily intended on, but Lena would make no interrogation in return and she knew it; she was, of course, safe here. It was clear that Lena wanted her, needed her.

...and clear as well that the same held true for this newcomer, for Emily.

The question was simply how _much._

Lena only nodded swiftly, choking back her fear to say, “Yes, Mistress.”

“In sickness, in health, pain, injury - until death come between you?” The Countess doubted any such vows had ever been sworn, strictly speaking, not in the presence of clergy and church and congregation - but a trading of paired jewelry tended to mean only one thing when coupled with that level of concern at an absence. “Speak freely, do not hold back now, _ma chérie.”_

“Yes, Mistress. What’s- oh, god...”

It was clear, from the look on Lena’s face, that she expected death _had_ come between them now that it was mentioned - clear that she thought from the query, and the pendant’s presence, that it had been found in the forest bereft of an owner or beside a bloodied remnant instead.

“Forsaking all others?” Perhaps the most dangerous question of them all, but it felt no different on Amélie’s lips and sounded no different in her ears. The careful delivery of a Countess - one could never reveal one’s true intentions for fear that they might be considered untoward or unseemly.

While it didn’t seem any different than the others, however, it did have somewhat of a different effect - perhaps because Lena was already falling into despair and as such so much more susceptible to more of the same, or perhaps because that had been some particular point of contention or strife.

For whatever reason, Lena reacted to the question as if it had been something terribly bitter and sour shoved between her lips; her mouth screwed up in something between a scowl and a snarl, but no sound escaped. Soundlessly, she shook her head firmly as tears began to streak down her cheeks.

An interesting response, and one Amélie could hardly ignore - and on the one hand, it irritated her. She had taken some small pleasure in the idea of luring Lena away, she always did, took some little pleasure in making them throw away their rings and chase her off into the woods.

It would seem, though, that Lena had been violating no promise and eschewing no vow in doing so, and that surely lessened Amélie’s former triumph - but, then, it did suggest that a clash would be less likely. Positives and negatives, like day and night.

Lena’s heartbeat jumped erratically, frantically, and what had been a pleasant dance on its part began to sour into that long slow descent of a heart entering sadness, and it curled the Countess’ lip in distaste. Her head tipped back and  turned just barely to call over her shoulder. “You may enter now. Come in, _chérie.”_

Emily half-muttered something to herself, some thanks or indication that she’d heard as she walked into the stable, shaking her head as if to clear some lingering fog - like any person halfway through awakening from a deep sleep, or like a drunk trying to rally up the clarity to explain themselves to a questioning and judgemental party.

Either could be said to be true, but neither had the chance to coalesce - before any questioning or any wakening happened, Lena was already in motion.

“Emily! Em!” Lena, freed from her commanded quietness, shouted freely and gleefully - brightly and delightedly as she rushed forward to embrace her lover.

Her heart immediately leapt, picking up pace to race quickly as arms wrapped and lips met lips and soft questions began to spill overtop of soft assurances - as “what happened?” from one was overlapped by “I was so worried” from the other, as the “I love you” of the former blended in with the “I’m alright, I’m sorry” of the latter.

Amélie let her eyes slide shut for a moment, taking a deep breath; perfume mixed with perfume, as it had been that first night but stronger, and streaked through with the scent of blood as well - along with perhaps somewhat less pleasant scents like horse and hay, but those were hardly worth minding over.

What _was_ worth much was the glorious race of two hearts, like prized thoroughbreds at the track pounding dirt beneath their hooves - each seemed to be trying to best the other, every heartbeat mirrored and met with another, so much so that Amélie ceased to think she was listening and began to suspect that she was feeling them both, the pair of them, even through the air that separated her from the pair.

For some reason.

Separated her, for some reason - as if she had any reason to maintain her distance.

Separated her, for some reason, as if she had any purpose in holding back.

Separated her for some reason as if she was not _permitted._

As if their permission would mean anything, as if there _was_ any such laughable thing as that, the idea of a human permitting her to this or that - particularly either of these two, Lena who never tried for a moment to do anything but ingratiate herself and please Amélie, and Emily who had given over her prized pendant with only a few batted eyelashes and then stood out alone in the cold.

Yet, for some reason, she’d separated herself.

How foolish.

Even without looking, she knew which heartbeat was which - even with eyes closed, she recognized Lena’s familiar beat and Emily’s novel one, and she knew exactly where each one was.

She could, indeed, feel the heart - as her lips approached close enough to brush against the short hairs on Emily’s neck, just up under her hair tied high, Amélie could _feel_ Emily’s heartbeat as it raced with exultation at being reunited, with adrenaline from the night’s events, with passion from kisses once thought lost.

Even more, she felt it when her teeth punctured skin - and even more that beat did race, somehow finding new depths of strength and speed with which to rush.

A sharp shout and a low growl, Emily’s hand recoiling backward to the Countess’ head - but not pulling it away, as lips sealed tightly on skin and Amélie began to gulp down mouthful after mouthful of brightly tangy blood in a flavour she’d never yet tasted, a brand new vintage and a delicious one at that.

Emily’s hand made no attempt to pull her away as teeth sank deeper into her neck, just underneath the base of her skull; she pulled the Countess’ head in _tighter,_ a high keening noise of pleasure and confusion escaping her throat.

Lena withdrew just slightly, grinning wide with excitement as she held Emily’s free hand with one of hers and watched, the way Amélie mouth latched on and the way her throat shifted as she gulped - the _looks_ on both of their faces, the clear delight and almost agonized ecstasy of both of them.

“Oh, you’re gonna _love_ it here, love,” Lena sighed, tipping her head forward to give Emily a quick kiss on the opposite side of the neck. Then she withdrew with a chuckle and a smile, catching Amélie’s eye as the Countess stood up and gasped deeply, licking blood from her lips. “Our Mistress is gonna make sure of it…”


	7. A2S2: Accommodations

**Act Two, Scene Two:** **Accommodations**

 

\---

 

It was, of course, no surprise that Emily fit in easily and quickly to life at the Château.

It would have been no surprise with  _ anyone _ , of course, but all the less so with her; between Lena’s tutelage and their natural alignments, Emily adapted even more smoothly and swiftly to the new schedule and new tasks.

Amélie often found herself grinning as she walked around the Château.

It was, of course, pleasant to have people on the grounds once more. It was better to have them there to deal with the cracked windows or the dusty shelves, the damaged slate tiles on the roof and all the rest - it was a return to former glory, if a slightly slow one.

Slightly slow for the fact that they were not simply staff and could not spend  _ every _ moment working on the house, but therein lay the deeper reason for Amélie’s grin, because the two were more than just servants who could hammer a board into place.

They were, in fact - in a way, at least - nearly everything to her.

Everything she had been missing, everything that had been absent from the Château and from her life.

Entertainment, company, playthings with which to toy as she chose. Most importantly, though, warm blood whenever she wished, and bodily warmth as well; no fire would suffice, no steaming bath, no wine and no hot meal could ever sate her, but  _ they _ , they could.

Lena alone had been a snack, a pack of jerky or dried meats and nuts - enough to keep her from hungering whilst running around but hardly the same as having full and filling meals at one’s house. A sandwich rather than a whole roast pheasant.

With the  _ two  _ of them, however? There was no such limitation.

It was so tempting, so very tempting, to fall back into her former debauchery - to paint the entirety of the Château with their plentiful blood - but the Countess managed to refrain, to maintain her composure and keep things to their acceptable forms and acceptable places.

Which is not to say there was no debauchery whatsoever to be had.

Simply that it was appropriately located.

Desperate screams often filled the halls in chorus, one voice being joined by another and then another as bodies would writhe; the bedrooms were first, of course, their red sheets made so much the more vibrant by the blood which would soak them, but Amélie came to find that other rooms were perfectly suited as well.

What was a bath if not ideal for such things, after all? Well used to passionate displays, surely - and very well-suited to cleaning afterward.

 

\---

 

Neither of them knew much about pipes. None of the three did, but Amélie had already known  _ she _ knew nothing about the matter.

She’d had some hope, though, for Lena or Emily.

It had been an unknowable amount of time since that night with the Witch when the taps of the bath had flowed again, despite their fires sitting cold in the boiler room, but the Countess had thought of it often. Now, she knew that the water’s warmth would mean nothing to her, but she had the warmth of these other two to take from.

The only problem was that the pipes would not flow.

Rusted or clogged or perhaps simply broken, she didn’t know and couldn’t tell - but had hoped that the others might be able to.

Sadly, not so.

Amélie still left the Château quite regularly, though, on her little hunts - she brought back a plumber from the village one night, his eyes groggy from both sleep and her particular effects, but his vision was not too bleary to see the pipes and his mind was not too fogged to decipher the problem, and the water began to flow once more.

The following day, Lena and Emily had been hard at work in the library, re-organizing and laying out on the shelves all the books which had been shuffled around over countless days of Amélie’s research. They’d stopped at the instant of their Mistress’ insistence, though, of course, and had gone to join her in the bath room.

Hot water, steam, fine salts and oils - they expected her to step in first, of course, as any one might expect of servants and their Mistress, but she didn’t.

“For you, my pets,” Amélie murmured, gesturing them toward the water. Candles surrounded the bath, making halos glow in the steam that lifted from it. “You have been working so hard. You deserve some rest and reward, do you not?”

Lena shivered as the Countess slipped behind her, pressing a soft kiss to her neck and tugging loose the ties of her breeches and tunic. “Not sure that’s  _ exactly _ the reward I’d ask for, f’I had my choice, Mistress.”

Her head tipped to the side, baring her neck further to make clear what she  _ would _ ask for as Emily giggled, and Amélie flashed a grin to the redhead - it had proved quite amusing, seeing how the two interacted and interjecting herself as she chose.

Life could become boring at times, but it seemed less so with them around.

“She is so  _ greedy, _ is she not,  _ chérie?” _ Amélie made sure her lips brushed against Lena’s pulsing artery with every word as she kept her eyes locked on Emily’s.

Emily’s eyes, which burned back at her with their own wishes being made just as clear as Lena’s desperately bared neck had done, even as the redhead licked at her lips with a smirk. “Well, can you blame her, Mistress?”

With a laugh, Amélie had bit down instead of replying otherwise, Lena’s knees wobbling as she cried out in thanks - and a few moments later, when the Countess withdrew, they’d finished with their undressing and gone into the bath.

First, it had been a simple matter of cleaning, but that lasted only for a very short time. Matters quickly devolved and diverted, hands roaming and tugging at hair, brown or red as voices called out in passion and ecstasy.

Skin made slick by bath oils, the three of them wove together in the most intricate and intimate of geometries, and the water - the water became stained and bright and vibrant, until it was so red that Amélie thought she might have been able to slip under it and guzzle until there was no more room, until she was filled completely and perhaps for the first time in her new life, totally sated.

Although, as Lena and Emily curled up in her arms afterward, tired but satisfied with their pounding hearts and red cheeks and so very  _ warm _ with how close they were, Amélie thought that perhaps she was very nearly sated anyway.

At least, for a moment.

 

\---

 

When they’d risen from the bath, Amélie had unceremoniously thrown Lena and Emily’s old clothing out of the window, and handed each of them a box with an outfit which she’d had tailored to fit them - button-up shirts and coats, trousers, all quite refined, and they’d gone to one of the bedrooms to try them on.

Try them on and, momentarily later, peel them off again to soak the bedsheets with sweat and blood.

Work clothes had been arranged, too, and the grocery trips continued, the fixing and cleaning and replacing around the Château - the routines were however often broken up by little ideas that one, or the other, or the other of the three had, and Amélie found those to be a source of delight. The little things that the two would come up with, their small inventions formed with no purpose other than to make her smile or improve her mood.

Of course they did, though - of course they wished her to smile, and her mood to be good; they could only do so, under her will as they were, and even if they  _ hadn’t _ been it was only clever to do as much anyway.

One would always prefer that a Mistress be pleasant rather than sour.

The Countess tried not to think of that much, though, and for the most part, she succeeded. There was, after all, generally plenty with which to distract herself.

 

\---

 

“You sure this’ll work, love?”

“Not in the slightest. But we can hope, eh?”

Lena did her best to hold still - she healed well, and quickly, but she didn’t want to risk gushing blood everywhere and ruining their nice outfits. Amélie had been so kind to provide them, after all.

A butcher’s knife was hardly a  _ precise _ tool.

She winced as Emily prodded the point of the blade into her neck - coat and shirt off, for the moment, and a red napkin held in place to catch any excessive blood - and Lena hissed at the pain.

It still hurt, getting cut; when she did it to herself, or when Emily did, it still hurt. Worthwhile but still painful. It was only when the puncture came from  _ fangs _ that there was no pain.

Emily carefully caught a jarful of blood, then leaned in to kiss the small wound she’d caused on her lover’s neck. “Alright, my turn now.”

They swapped places, Lena standing on the floor of the kitchen and Emily hopping up to sit on the edge of one of the counters, and Lena jabbed a small slit into Emily’s neck and caught what bled out in a jar, and gave her a kiss just the same.

“I really hope it  _ does _ work,” Emily murmured as they pulled their clothing quickly back on, helping each other to make sure it was all in place, the little injuries in their necks already healed to the point of not bleeding anymore.

They knew that blood couldn’t be  _ kept _ , but there was obviously some time limit where it was still fresh enough - and they knew that Amélie couldn’t drink wine anymore, but it was clear from her immaculate and filled cellars that she might wish to.

“Me too,” Lena nodded, tugging Emily’s lapels straighter - and then tugging them closer, pulling Emily into a deep kiss which they broke only when they needed air and separated with a grin and hearts racing in combined passion and anticipation. “Let’s go see, shall we?”

Linked arm in arm together, went out to the dining table where Amélie awaited - Lena pushed a small silver trolley with a silver dome, and Emily held a bottle of wine under her free arm and a glass in that hand.

The Countess sat expectantly, and raised an eyebrow at their approach.

“We know it’s irregular, Mistress,” Emily began, bowing slightly at one of Amélie’s elbows as Lena rolled the trolley around to her other side, “but we thought you might eat  _ first _ tonight, and us afterward. If you would care to, of course.”

Amélie almost said something, her lips parting and breath taken in but no words escaping - she looked back and forth between the two, a slight twitch tugging at one corner of her lips, before silently gesturing toward the table to tell them to continue.

Lena pulled the dome back, revealing a small pot of soup for the pair of them and also the jars of their freshly-collected blood, and she lifted those to pour into the glass that Emily set down even as Emily filled it with wine as well.

They’d hoped that a roughly one-third, one-third, one-third mixture would work, Emily’s blood and Lena’s and wine; that the blood would still be fresh enough to be drunk, and that the wine would be little enough to be palatable but still plentiful enough to be tasted.

The Countess took the glass in hand, taking a deep, slow noseful of its scent; her mouth watered at it, her other hand gripping tighter at the table. Emily and Lena’s scents mixing together and added to that always-joyful aroma of wine, it was so much for her to resist, but she managed.

The first sip, however, was very nearly  _ too _ much.

It struck her like a blow, and she set down the glass so swiftly and firmly she almost spilled, almost snapped the stem from it and shattered the glass, but just barely avoided it - Lena and Emily exchanged a worried glance, which only redoubled a second later when Amélie pushed her chair back from the table and then sat in silence for several seconds, hands clenched almost angrily on the table’s edge.

“It is hardly good form to drink wine without a meal,” she muttered swiftly, eyes closed and nostrils filling with the smell of wine and blood as the lingering taste of the same made her ever-present hunger roar like a fire with liquor poured over the coals. The scents of Emily and Lena as well, so close and so warm, and it all left her mind a whirling mess of heat and desire.

She felt like she was back at the start again, only freshly acquainted with her new hunger and so much more prone to it as a result; she needed them, needed to feed, needed to feast as much as she ever had, but she couldn't release the tension enough to say even a single word or risk snapping entirely and dissolving back into the  _ animal _ she'd once been.

She refused to do that, though. She couldn't.

They didn’t  _ need  _ another word, however; they took their places up on the table with clear joy and delight, and she had no reason to resist anymore - she had been a fool to ever fight it - and she fell upon them as ravenously as she ever had. Moreso, even, at least for Emily. 

Quite possibly for Lena as well.

She alternated mouthfuls from their fresh veins with mouthfuls from the glass, and it was refilled whenever she turned her head - the bottle changing hands from Emily to Lena and back again, and the jars they’d gathered as well - and before the candles burned down another half-inch she drank it all, and nearly all  _ they _ had to offer as well.

Slightly wobbly from blood loss, they retreated to the other end of the table - Lena supporting herself on the trolley with a wide grin and an almost constant stream of soft giggles, and Emily supporting herself on Lena with a massive smile and every breath escaping in a satisfied sigh.

Amélie watched them from the head of the table, watched as they ate their soup and exchanged soft words and little jokes, and she heard their hearts regain strength even at a distance - from food, from rest, from each other - and she smiled at the thought of it.

They’d done that just to please her, come up with an idea and put it into place just to make her night a little better, and did it really matter  _ why? _ Did it matter whether the impulse came from them, or from her? Whether it was truly  _ their _ concern, or only some figment of the compulsion she pressed into their minds?

In that moment, to her, it didn’t - no more than it mattered that the Witch had stolen away her warmth. She also offered it. The Witch had stolen her life, but had offered a new one, and what use was there in letting the former block one from the latter?

She could try to deny the Witch, but it would not bring back Gérard.

Nor would any such thing make any difference with Lena and Emily, surely - whether it was through care or compulsion, they made efforts to please her, and that was all that mattered.

Amélie thought this from her chair, distant at the head of the table, as the other two chatted at the far end and she simply watched and thought.

 

\---

 

The Château didn’t look the same as it had, and Amélie suspected it never would - no, in fact, more than that, she  _ knew _ , deep down in her slow-beating heart, that it never would.

How could it, when it didn’t contain the same life as before? How could a home bereft of Gérard, and bereft of  _ his _ Amélie as well, ever be the same?

It couldn’t.

...but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be beautiful in its own right.

The gardens were no longer as overgrown, though they were far cries from their former splendor; no longer gorgeous creations of hand and mind, but rather some tamed version of wildness, uncultured roses tied back and trimmed, wildflowers weeded between and clean.

The shingles no longer sagged - and while she had no care for whether the water sluiced well from the rooftops and no concern for whether the splits grew thick with moss, it was admittedly more pleasant to look at.

The windows were no longer cracked - and while she’d never been bothered by the drafts and had never noticed the cold, it did make the world outside clearer.

The doors no longer squeaked on their hinges, and it  _ mattered _ now that people opened them. 

The shelves and tables were not coated in dust.

The knives saw use.

The tablecloths and runners, and the thick curtains which held back the sun - the sheets and the linens and the towels and all, came to be free of moth-holes and tatters and that unfortunate grime that comes simply from age.

It was so much, in fact, that she wondered how she’d ever tolerated it.

Perhaps it was, as any frog in a water-pot, a matter of degrees. A matter of slow steady changes, of small departure after small departure until one is so far gone from one’s beginning that it can hardly be seen and one has perished without noticing.

Or, perhaps, it was a matter of catastrophe; of something so chaotic and climactic that, in the midst of it, any massive change could be effected with no notice whatsoever.

Laying in one of the Château’s many bedrooms, Lena wrapped in one arm and Emily in the other, soaking in their bodies’ warmth as they slept and she lay there awake, Amélie wondered. 

She cast her gaze out at the pockmarked moon and wondered how she’d ever  _ not _ noticed the same holey pattern being eaten into the curtains which framed that same moon, but she hadn’t - not until it was gone, the curtains replaced, and in the  _ absence _ of moth-holes she realized their former presence.

One never knows what one has until it is gone.

Perhaps, though, that was not always such a bad thing.

They could have been patched, in theory, the curtains and the moth-holes. Lena had even tried, sitting down with needle and thread, but the Countess had flung the curtains onto the fire with a laugh.

She was always trying to save things that she should simply have thrown away - and Emily was hardly any better about it, but they never denied her, neither of them. When she told them to throw something away and simply buy a new one, they did.

Her coffers might have waned, had they been in any state to - had they not been nearly bottomless to begin with, as well as having appreciated hugely for the antiquity of all they held and the added worth that the rarity of time brought to her other possessions.

Even simple things like candlesticks; Lena had brought a pair to the marketplace on trip, and had returned with the laughable news that they were the product of a maker so sought-after that the merchant had not had in pocket enough gold to offer, but he’d promised to obtain it within week’s end.

Amélie had decided not to sell those candlesticks after all.

Anything that anyone else wanted so desperately as to run around obtaining loans from other cities, was something she very much wanted to  _ keep. _

They bought whatever was needed, for the Château or for themselves, be it food or new clothing or blankets or dishes, and it made little difference to her. The money was good for nothing save what it could obtain, the gold had never done her the smallest increment of good sitting in its vaults, and every comfort she afforded Lena and Emily was one more mouthful of blood she could drink from them before their strength began to waver, one more rushed kiss and frenzied moment, one more little pleasure or joy.

Emily returned from a trip one time with the news that there were whispers around the town, that they’d noticed that the Old Castle (their words, she’d specified strenuously, not hers) was light again in the night at times. They whispered to each other, wondering who or what was out there in the woods, in the building they’d almost even forgotten the existence of.

Some, the eldest amongst them, recalled the Countess and Count Lacroix from tales their parents had told, but none really knew what had happened. One day, the Castle had gone dark, all the staff expelled in such a fright that they never spoke of what had come to pass within its walls.

Some curse, visited upon the building’s inhabitants - that was the story.

Amélie laughed when she heard this, laughed long and full at the news and at the concern of Emily and Lena. She had nothing to be concerned over.

They were only  _ humans _ after all.

She told the other two to keep their ears out whenever they were in town, though - to tell her of any new rumours, of any new ideas the townsfolk might be having, and to otherwise keep themselves out of notice.

They might be only humans, but a human with a lucky swing and a silver blade had still caused her an unfortunate wound. They could be inconvenient at times, and in sufficient numbers might even pose a threat.

Even the denizens of the forest knew, after all, not to stray into town. One or two people alone in the woods were easy prey, but in larger numbers they became something over which to be concerned.

 

\---

 

There was snow on the ground.

Amélie cared little for the passing of the seasons any more. She had no need of tracking animal’s migrations - whether the ducks flew North or South mattered little to her, given that she no longer hunted them. Whether the deer would be with fawn or not held no bearing.

Her preferred prey now changed less from season to season.

Snow made tracking easier, the obvious prints of thick boots disturbing the freshly-fallen white, and Amélie hopped off of her horse and crouched low to smell at the bootprints.

_ Fear. _

Such an unmistakable scent.

She picked up a small lump of snow, a bright red drop marring its perfection - her tongue flicked out to confirm, but it was of course blood. The prey had survived a first shot and fled afresh off into the night, and now trailed her precious meal drip by drip upon the snow.

Not that she minded him fleeing. She could track an injured quarry even more easily than a clean one - it was the  _ waste _ of blood that irritated her.

It would do her no good in the cold snow.

The Countess mounted her horse once more, the beast familiarized over repetition with its master’s odd demands; she no longer rode the pony that Lena had brought back, but rather had arranged for a thoroughbred to be delivered to the town and stole it away in the middle of the night.

Paid in full, of course. She was no petty thief, she simply couldn’t wander by in the daylight while the stables were open, nor offer any proof of who she was to confirm the order.

Amélie Lacroix was, after all, long dead.

The Frizian’s long, black, wavy mane shimmered in the moonlight, and Amélie couldn’t suppress a grin as the snow-covered ground sped past, as leafless twigs snatched at her cheeks and her coat.

A flash of movement drew her eye, her hands pulling on the reins and halting the horse as something was briefly brighter than the moon, momentarily whiter than the snow.

The fox.

Her breath halted as swiftly as the horse, and as totally; puffs of steam still came from the beast’s nostrils as it huffed but didn’t move, and no steam came from the Countess’ nose, no breath.

The fox - that same fox, white and soft and gorgeous in the moonlight - leapt from one branch to another, watching her the whole time. There was something familiar in its gaze, something she recognized, something sharp and intense.

It wasn’t the gaze of fearful prey, it was the eye of a huntress in that fox.

Amélie didn’t breathe as it lighted from its branch down to the snow, its pads leaving no print or indentation in the banks. It was as if the fox was not a part of the same world, as if it wasn’t held to the same laws as the rest of the them.

She shouldn’t have been surprised when the beast shimmered and disappeared, and the Witch stood in its place.

The moonlight gleamed off of her pale skin, the look in her eyes unchanged; just as the fox’s gaze had been, sharp and clear and intense. The Witch stood as she always had, unafraid and seeming to taunt with her mere existence - to taunt, but also to promise.

Her clothing was the same as always, no thick furs like the humans wore to keep out the night’s chill. No coat or cloak, but no indication that she was cold; no goosebumps on her skin, not a shiver in any of her muscles.

As if she was not part of the same world, as if she was not held to the same laws as the rest of them.

Amélie still didn’t breathe.

“You got a new horse.”

The Countess didn’t respond to the words except for to drop her eyes away from the Witch, down to the beast she rode; yes, it was new, and she could say much about it. Could say that she had, as any proud Countess, considered heritages of so many lines of thoroughbreds in order to choose the correct one; could say that she’d always wanted one of these since she was a little girl, but had thought it un-fitting for a few reasons to have a black horse.

No longer was that the case, of course.

All of these thoughts failed to come to fruition, though, as the Countess looked up to her Mistress again, to the Witch, to Mercy, and none of the rest of it seemed to matter. It never did, not the horses or the pain, not when she could hear the Witch’s heart so close and long for its warmth.

She had been so worried that she might never get the chance again - that the Witch might, for once,  _ not _ hold true to her word and fail to return.

That, once more, Amélie might be left alone.

With Mercy so close, that was how the thoughts ordered themselves, the memories - they shuffled themselves like cards until that was the story they formed, that  _ that _ was the reason she’d brought Lena and Emily back to the house, in some sad and paltry, pitiful attempt to fill the void left by the Witch; that  _ that _ was why she’d busied herself with fixing the Château, in some stupid and sure-to-fail effort to distract herself from Mercy’s absence; that  _ that _ was why she spent the nights hunting humans like foxes, because she longed for that one fox which had escaped and she had no hope of luring once more.

Not because it was enjoyable. Not because she wished to. Not because she  _ wanted _ it.

No, it was all about the Witch. It always was.

That much was obvious.

A long silence, externally still as her mind whirled and reeled, her eyes a little bit wider than normal in the moonlight and breath still bated. Throughout it, Mercy simply stood and watched, like a hawk waiting for a vole to move from its hole.

Amélie cleared her throat, softly, her hand relaxing on the reins as she readied a breath for her first words. The ones she hoped would not be her  _ last _ words. “Will you be staying for dinner? I must tell my staff to prepare accordingly.”

The Witch continued to watch her with that same close gaze, almost approaching wariness, and then nodded.

...and then was gone.

Amélie was not worried she would be gone for long, though - not this time. She pulled the reins around and urged her horse on, galloping back toward the Château without hardly a second thought toward the injured prey which she was letting escape.

The man would probably bleed out or freeze, anyway, or be beset by any of the forest’s other denizens.

The wolves, perhaps.

It was a dangerous forest, after all, and one never knew what attention one might attract, wandering around it trailing the scent of  _ blood. _

 

_ \--- _

 

By the time the Countess returned, the moon had shifted positions in the sky, but the sun still didn’t threaten to break the darkness.

Longer nights. That was an advantage to tracking the seasons’ change, and she resolved to do so in the future.

Emily and Lena were up, and awake, their sleeping schedules hardly anything which could be called “regular” anymore, and the Countess called out for them as she rode up to the stables.

“Has she been by yet?” Amélie called up to an open window, and Emily cleaning its closed partner.

“Who, Mistress?”

The Countess didn’t reply. There was too much to say, to say it simply - what  _ would _ she even say as a descriptor? “Mercy” would hardly suffice, unless she’d introduced herself as such, and “my Mistress” hardly seemed apt. She was so much more than that.

Instead, Amélie just shook her head and nudged at her horse’s ribs to send it into the stables. Lena was there, working quietly, and Amélie offered her a brief smile as worry began to build in her gut.

“Some would say a black horse is inappropriate,” came the Witch’s voice from nowhere in particular, “but then, I suppose you  _ are _ a widow, my dear. Aren’t you? Just hardly a fresh one.”

Amélie held back any outward displays, of either the unfortunate twisting in her gut or the urge of a snarl which played at her lip spurred by the reminder of Gérard’s loss, or the pleased shiver which ran down her spine at her Mistress’ nearness and voice.

Yes, her voice was sharp and taunting, but it was a voice Amélie had feared she’d always be without.

When one lives so long in the night, the opportunity to partake of even a  _ stormy  _ day is greatly and readily welcomed.

From the start, she’d been foolish - from the start, it had been clear she’d needed the Witch, and  _ yes _ , she hated her. It was just as clear that she wanted Mercy, and needed her.

Who said that hate and love could not coexist, after all?

The latter was more pressing, anyway. She  _ needed _ the Witch, so what did the negatives matter? One would endure any number of uncomfortable or unfortunate situations if the alternative was to perish, to starve, to cease to be.

As she surely needed to do. She needed to take more caution, to remain safe and unharmed.

Amélie turned toward the Witch’s voice, glancing down to her horse. “I thought it only fitting. I thought it to be… due time.”

Lena shot her a curious look, but the Countess silenced her without a word, stepping out toward the shadows which must have concealed the Witch - stepping blindly out toward the voice she’d heard, and hoping to find its owner.

_ Her _ owner. Her Mistress.

“Will you come in? I have much to show you - a room will be made up for as long as you wish it, as long as you would stay, please.”

There was much, however, that she could not say. Much that no noble ever could, outside of privacy and closed doors. She didn’t want to seem childish, begging - but she wanted to make her desire clear. She didn’t want to seem unrefined, but she wanted to make her feelings known.

It was the razor’s edge which she’d walked through life, the one which separated the commoners from the nobles, the razor’s edge with which one trimmed out pieces of one’s life and oneself until what was left was presentable at court.

It was simply what one did, and while she’d forgotten that for a while, she was now quite urgently wishing to demonstrate that she’d rediscovered that fact.

“What need have I for a room,” the Witch murmured from behind her ear, stepping soundlessly not from any shadow but simply from nowhere, soft warm lips brushing against Amélie’s earlobe and making her shiver, “when yours will suffice so well? A pleasant thought though, my dear - and it would seem you  _ can _ learn, despite prior indications. Perhaps there is a worthwhile mind to match your beauty after all.”

Amélie sighed softly, sinking backward into the Witch’s warmth and her embrace, even as some small piece deep inside of her growled at the insults hidden within the compliments. Even a somewhat cloudy day was so much better than a cold night, and the Countess had no wish to despoil what sunlight she was granted.

“Thank you, Mistress,” she whispered, one hand raising to drape on Mercy’s forearm. Without looking, she waved the other in Lena’s direction. “Go, get Emily and prepare a meal. A feast. Something worthy of our esteemed company.”

She heard the footsteps, Lena running off - heard the Witch’s soft chuckle in her ear, and the taunting addition  of, “if you are even capable of such a thing!”

If they were capable of such a thing, as being worthy - it was a question worth asking, and she’d not wondered much over how the Witch might react to Lena’s or Emily’s presence, but one thing seemed certain.

As Mercy’s hands tugged at her buttons and the Witch’s voice sounded softly, hotly in her ears; as Amélie was lowered down to her knees to clutch at the Witch’s legs and be deafened and half-maddened by the heavy heartbeat through the thighs pressed to either ear, one thing was clear.

_ She _ was worthy.

Worthy of the Witch’s presence and her tenderness, worthy of her concern and her cruelty - worthy of the slaps on the back of the hand that served to teach her, worthy of the thought that correction took.

Worthy of her love.

As any good hound.

 

\---

 

Partridges.

Not the most high of possible meals, and Amélie scowled briefly at their revelation - while they were beautifully trussed and pleasantly prepared and presented, six of them laid on a bed of roast vegetables piled high in a silver dish, each bird with skin glistening and crackling and practically dripping its own juices, the fact remained that they were still simply partridges.

Not grouse, not one of the finer fowl - peacocks, perhaps, but no. Partridges. Barely one step above chickens.

It ended up not mattering, anyway.

The Witch didn’t eat them.

She seemed, indeed, hardly to notice their presence, despite the lengths to which Lena had gone in their preparations. Mercy was far more concerned with the large golden bowl of berries and small fruits, fed to her piece-by-piece, by hand, by Amélie.

She picked up the small desserts which Emily had worked so tediously upon, the fine French pastries with their precise layers and folds so plentiful that one blended through into the next, and she would place them half in Amélie’s mouth and then close the distance between them to devour the other half herself.

...not that the Countess could  _ eat _ any of the desserts. They crumbled like paper to ash in her mouth, and she was barely capable of forcing them down her gullet - which only led, of course, to her letting only the smallest amount possible into her own mouth and leaving the bulk for the Witch.

The Witch, who spent the meal sitting upon Amélie’s lap, doting on her and being doted upon in turn. The Witch, who drank deeply of all the wine offered - and who, in doing so, showed her only bare interaction with the other two who functioned as serving staff: when she gestured for her glass to be refilled.

Or, at least, her only  _ direct _ interaction.

There were plenty of looks and glances directed their way, both Emily and Lena finding the Witch’s eyes upon them at several times - as Amélie fed her a grape and she surpassed it to lick at the Countess’ fingertips as well, as she tugged Amélie’s head in to the crux of her neck, as she ran her fingers through Amélie’s long hair.

When she looked away, they would exchange glances with each other, silently asking, quietly wondering - who was she? This woman who had unexpectedly arrived and disturbed their comfortable life here, and seemingly stolen away their Mistress’ attentions?

There was, however, little answer for them.

Every time Amélie tried to call one or the other of them, Emily or Lena, over for something - at first, for various things, but as the meal went on and heartbeats continued to sound in her ear, more and more frequently only seeking for blood - Mercy would divert her attention. She would pull Amélie into a kiss and stifle her words, or place a finger on her chin and redirect her gaze.

“You’ve been so busy in my absence, my dear.” Mercy’s arms were draped around the Countess’ shoulders, one hand loosely holding a glass of wine - but despite the seeming limpness of the hold, there was never any risk that the wine would spill. Every rolling motion of the glass was offset by another, keeping its contents secure. “One might think you were hardly distraught at all.”

“Hardly-” Amélie nearly laughed halfway through the word, interrupting herself for a moment to shake her head. “Hardly distraught? I-”

An unpleasant feeling sunk through her, from her head down to her core, as she thought back on it; she  _ hadn’t _ been particularly distraught, for particularly long, because that was not what one did. That was not appropriate, not polite, not correct, not  _ noble. _

All the things she wished to be.

She had not been excessively distraught and could not  _ admit _ to being so, because it was inappropriate to do so and she’d been commanded to avoid such things.

Yet, she could hardly admit to being unperturbed, because it was both untrue and unwise to say so, and she’d been equally commanded to embrace the Witch. She  _ had _ been quite bothered, it had simply been a requirement to maintain her composure.

The contrast, the paradox of it, caught in her throat like an overly-ambitious mouthful and she saw a grin curl the corner of the Witch’s lip.

She always had enjoyed taunting, teasing.

“I- busied myself, to distract,” Amélie provided, the words almost choked out as she was caught between one compulsion and another - not to mention the hunger which urged more and more insistently as the Witch’s heart continued to beat so methodically nearby.

“Mmm, busied indeed,” the Witch murmured softly, her eyes flicking off to one side and lighting briefly on Emily there. “Busied yourself with gathering staff - oh, but they do look a little  _ pale _ , do they not? Pale, and cloudy in their eyes. Did you learn of that from your little books, hmm?”

Amélie’s lips brushed against the Witch’s neck, the barest tip of her tongue flicking out against that softly-pulsing artery that still managed to be deafeningly loud enough to almost drown out the words.

“There were mentions,” she hissed swiftly, urgently. “Vampires, powers of the mind - servants and slaves, and-”

“Thralls, they’re called,” Mercy interrupted, her fingers running loosely through the Countess’ long hair before they tightened up and tugged Amélie’s head firmly in toward her neck. “Your bite can do much, now, my dear - beyond its more basal applications, of course.”

“Of course,” Amélie muttered, muffling the words against soft skin as her sharp teeth scraped gently at it - very gently, no possibility of breaking skin and drawing blood.

Sadly.

The Witch held Amélie’s head in place as she leaned back, every degree of inclination another inch of separation between the Countess’ teeth and her neck, and Amélie had to resist the urge to snarl and lunge forward.

“My dear, I tire of this meal.” Mercy’s tone was soft and dismissive, and implied very much that the meal hadn’t been overly impressive to begin with. “Have it cleaned up, will you? Let’s away, to somewhere more private.”

To say that there was much left to the Countess’ mind would be a vast overstatement. There was, in fact, nearly only one thought in the entirety of it:  _ hunger. _ Hunger and lust and desire, all melting through into one and the same as they had for so many years or decades now, and she almost lashed out with one hand in a gesture toward Emily and Lena.

“Clean it up,” she commanded swiftly - not harshly, not too harshly for a Countess, but not softly either, and without another word she was leaving. Risen from her chair and taking chase after the Witch, her white fox, again - footsteps following footsteps through the halls as Mercy laughed and led the way toward one of the Château’s many bedrooms.

Not the Master bedroom, though, up in the tower - Amélie informed her that that one was not yet ready. Not renovated, not prepared.

In the dining hall, the candles continued to burn down as Emily and Lena set about the task of cleaning up the dinner as instructed. Emily set a pair of the partridges aside onto a more plain plate for the two of them to eat, and a few of the desserts as well, as Lena started with clearing away the rest to be disposed of, the dishes to be cleaned, the tablecloth to be washed.

“Y’know, I don’t like her,” Lena muttered after a while, rubbing away scratches and splinters worn into the table by Amélie’s desperately-clutching fingers. They were plentiful and deep, and she didn’t for one second like the thought of the feelings that must have inspired them - not one bit.

Emily laughed softly, shaking her head as she wrapped Lena up in a brief hug with a kiss on the cheek. “Don’t think she  _ wants _ us to, love - d’you see the way she was looking at us?”

Lena’s shudder, though slight, was easily felt to them both due to the nearness of their contact. “Yeah,” she admitted with a nod, “that was… little odd. Like she was trying to mock us or summat, eh?”

Emily just hummed, nodding as she set a half-emptied bottle of wine onto the tray for them as well, and she thought the conversation was done - it returned to silence for another moment, both of them focused on their pressing task at hand before they could retreat to their own dinner and what seemed like would be a night spent without their Mistress.

That really wasn’t so bad, though, nor so irregular. Amélie often spent some of the time during nights out, even the whole night - though never more than one at a time, of course, returning before sun bled over the land again - but Lena and Emily were never alone with each other there.

The irregular part was  _ why _ Amélie would be otherwise occupied, this night.

“Doesn’t treat her well enough, f’you ask me,” Lena muttered under her breath, wiping away half of the tabletop and extinguishing the candles as Emily did the same on the other side.

Again, Emily could only nod, even if the thought of it unnerved her. Her mind kept flicking back to the dinner, to the strange woman’s sharp eyes being on her - a flash of them every time she blinked, as if the image had burned there, as if it had a mind of its own to will its own continued presence..

“Think-” Emily coughed to clear her dry throat. “Think you should keep your voice down there, love,” she whispered.

This time it was Lena’s turn to nod in silence, paler-than-normal cheeks suggesting that she’d fallen prey to the same worry and the same anxiety, that somehow they might be overheard and this new stranger - who clearly held some great power over their Mistress - might decide to make enemies of them.

“C’mon, let’s just have our dinner,” Emily circled around the table now that it was clear - now that everything was cleaned off and there were no compulsions stirring her on anymore, her freedom restored once more.

Or, at least, as much as it ever had been.

The partridges warmed up well over the coals in the kitchen, and the two laughed as they joked and ate - finishing off the bottle of wine and opening a fresh one for themselves as well, dinner blending through into dessert and then on into the entertainments of the night which found the two cuddled up in front of one of the many fireplaces, drawing warmth from the fire and from each other.

It was well-practiced between the two of them, years of repetition providing easy pathways through familiar territory; small touches and softly murmured words that spoke of love and comfort and joy, little caresses which clearly communicated care.

They’d loved each other for years before ever coming to the Château, and it hadn’t changed. The circumstances might’ve been different - the location of their snuggled closeness was substantially more grand than it had been before, the lingering tastes on their tongues were finer and their bellies were fuller, and the fireplace was polished marble rather than rough-hewn gray stone, but the love was quite the same.

Altered, perhaps, slightly, for experience - but that’s always the way of things.

There were a few fewer nips at the neck than there might’ve been previously, because how could either of the two of them hope to compare to Amélie when it came to such a thing?

They couldn’t, and they  _ knew _ they couldn’t, so they didn’t bother trying.

There was plenty else they could do, anyway - and plenty they did, indeed, whiling away the remainder of the night with touches and tongues, with gasps and grasps, with sighs and sweet words and sharp ones as well, until their energy faded with the dying flames and they sank together into the darkness of unconsciousness as the embers began to glow in the hearth.

Much of the circumstance may have changed, and even  _ they _ had, but perhaps not by too much.

Perhaps.


	8. A2S3: The Chain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do feel like this one deserves a particular warning for viciousness, cruelty, sexual abuse, mental and emotional abuse; in general, there is quite a lot of abuse. Be forewarned, my dears.

**Act Two, Scene Three: The Chain**

 

\---

 

Privacy, as it turned out, had been only a happenstance of the Witch’s suggestion - not a requirement. She seemed to care very little for whether they were overseen by the two servants Lena and Emily, but she also seemed to care little whether they weren’t.

Seemed to, at least.

In the bath, she pulled Amélie close and right under the water, making use of the Countess’ lack of need to breathe as she held out her wine glass to be refilled by Emily and moaned heavily to the servant and the ceiling.

Lena, later that day, stumbled across the two of them in the library laid out across a bear pelt and staining it with blood, matting down its fur with sweat, their cries falling on its deaf ears, and neither Amélie nor Mercy seemed to note her presence as she went about dusting the shelves.

That night after dinner, Amélie had excused herself off into the woods, and the Witch had seemed to disappear entirely - whether following the Countess, or going off to wherever she’d been beforehand, neither Emily nor Lena could guess.

They’d still not been introduced, per se, and without something as basic as a  _ name _ they could hardly begin to presume something as complex as action or motive.

On the Countess’ return, she’d dragged a boar behind her, fresh-slain - so much so that it was still warm despite the winter night’s chill - and she’d handed it off to Lena to be prepared and cooked, and had explained some about this newcomer at their behest.

The Witch - Mercy, she called her - was the one responsible for her particular condition, offering it when Amélie had fallen in the forest and lay dying.

It was clear to both of them, though, that there was more at play.

There was something hard in Amélie’s tone, something dark in her eye, a little tic at her lip - small indicators of a larger displeasure, but at the same time, a quite totally enamored quality to all she said as well.

When questioned in return, neither Emily nor Lena had been able to provide any indication of the Witch’s whereabouts, at which point Amélie had become irate and demanded to know why they’d not kept an eye on her.

That was when the laughter began.

Soft, light, high and haughty - the Witch’s laughter always had that same melodic dismissiveness to it. “What did you hope, my dear?” She stepped out from behind the stables, grinning and making a line for Amélie as snowflakes drifted right off of her without catching or melting. “They are, after all, only human. Well, nearly.”

“Of course,” the Countess nodded, relieved at the Witch’s return as much as she was irritated by it, infuriated even.

That was simply the way of things, though. Every repetition, every repeated stroke wore that fact into her like a whittler’s knife shaving away wood; she would be angered by the Witch, and she would be enamored. She would hate. She would love.

It was clear that the one could not exist without the other.

It explained so much, as well - the Witch’s own anger and ire, flashing in her eyes or at the back of her hand, it made perfect sense. It had taken years or decades to learn it, perhaps - more than a life to do so, in more ways than one - but finally Amélie thought she could understand it.

At first, it had seemed like an irreconcilable dichotomy, a paradox; the Witch’s brightness and her darkness, her softness and her sharpness - but, in time, Amélie was coming to see that simply as the way of the world, the way of love.

Perhaps she always had, too. Perhaps, when she’d hunted back when Gérard had yet lived, that was what had driven her thoughts - driven her to know that, yes, the deer and the grouse lived, yet to slay them still.

Was it really so different to kill a human? She couldn’t think of a reason why it would be, not anymore.

She thought that maybe, at some point, there  _ had _ been. She thought that, at one point, love and hate had been opposites - that they had existed in different spaces, that they could never cross over.

The foolishness of youth.

“You look hungry.”

Amélie’s eyes snapped to Mercy’s at the Witch’s words, so full of promise as they always were - she was always promising, always offering, it was simply hidden for so much of the time. Amélie had learned, though, to see what deal was being tabled with any given word.

At least, sometimes.

Without another word, only a nod, she’d followed the Witch up into the house and left the other two to prepare the boar.

It ended up not mattering, anyway.

The Witch didn’t eat it.

 

\---

 

“Y’know, it’s our anniversary.”

Lena laid back in Emily’s arms, smiling softly at the hands which stroked idle lines through her messy hair as hers in turn traced cyclical patterns along the sides of Emily’s legs, and she glanced upward at the mention. “You what? Really?”

Emily’s eyes studied the moon outside, the first bare slivers of it - dark, the previous night, with this being the first night of the new one as it followed its eternal cycle of wax and wane, rise and fall, life, death, and rebirth.

“Yeah,” she murmured softly, one hand slipping from Lena’s ribs into her shirt - into Lena’s shirt - and fishing out the little wooden pendant on the leather thong there, carved into a heart. She rubbed her thumb over it, the rough surface worn smooth by a million similar touches. Lena’s hand came to join hers and they wrapped the trinket up between them.

She took a deep breath and sighed it out through a smile, her heart seeming to swell until she thought it might burst, but Lena couldn’t see her smile - couldn’t see her smile and could not feel or hear her heart, not nearly that clearly.

All she heard was the sigh.

“I- I know this isn’t exactly what you ever had in mind, love, but-” Lena shifted, turning around to face Emily directly, and was promptly met with the sight of the redhead’s frown and shaking head.

“No, no of course it’s not,” Emily replied, her frown breaking into an almost disbelieving smile as she let out a laugh. “It’s better - of course it’s better, how could it not be? I’ve got you, and I mean, look around,” she gestured wide with one hand to the paintings, the pillars, the marble statuettes.

“Far cry from that little shack behind the butcher’s,” Lena murmured, smiling slightly as Emily laughed and nodded.

“Exactly. Not what I planned, sure, but who cares?” Emily’s hand caressed at Lena’s cheek, softly and lovingly, and Lena nuzzled gently into the gesture. “Sometimes, things turn out better than we could ever dream.”

With a giggle, Lena flipped back over, wrapping Emily’s arms tight around herself with a little squealed sort of noise. “Well, happy anniversary, love - here’s to many more, eh?”

Nodding, smiling, stroking at her hair once more, Emily’s eyes returned to the moon. “Yeah, so many more. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

The moon was the same, but that was about all. Seasons changed, places did, the world. Even they, they both knew, had changed - as people always do. Be it a child learning, or an elder forgetting; whether through the joy of a new discovery or the hatred of one. Meeting a new person and welcoming them into your life. Finding a secret and banishing someone from your presence.

She was well-acquainted with all of that, in different ways and from different directions, and she knew Lena was as well. Lena, who hadn’t even been born in the same town and had been chased away after stealing one too many apples from the carts with no parent to provide for her. Emily, whose parents had disowned her after finding her in bed with the landlord’s daughter.

Well-acquainted with change, but even at that, change could still be disturbing.

Emily still didn’t like the look in Mercy’s eye, not at most times, and she was more than a little worried about a few things.

Worries which only grew in the silence and the darkness, in the distance and the duration, the longer time stretched on.

Whispers in the back of her mind, that told her to leave.

It’s been said that couples begin to think alike, to look alike, to act alike or align in other ways, and many causes have been proposed - similar circumstances forming similar people, or simple familiarity with each other leading to a greater empathy, or souls being twinned and resonating in some other, greater fashion.

Emily wasn’t sure about all of that. She knew that trees didn’t grow the same just because they were watered the same, she knew that after decades of knowing a parent or sibling they could still shock and outrage you when they threw you out of the house, and she certainly didn’t think there was only  _ one  _ soul which she might find companionship in - she knew there was more to it than all of that.

Whatever the reason, though, it would seem that some of her thoughts and worries telegraphed into her lover, because Lena’s hands sought hers again and pulled the two of them together into a tightly-cuddled ball on the bed.

After a silent moment, Emily kissed at the back of her ear and gave Lena an added little squeeze. “What is it, love? What’s going on?”

“It-it’s nothing,” Lena replied softly after a moment’s pause, shaking her head against the silk-covered pillow. “It’s just… I dunno…”

The sentence trailed away to the night’s almost-silence again, the soft noises of the forest and animals outside replacing any speech for several long moments. Long enough, in fact, that Emily thought Lena might have gone to sleep, and expected herself soon to follow.

“S’just…” the words came softly, as gentle as the wind through the trees outside the glass at first, and raising no louder or clearer than that. “D’you ever feel like… maybe… we  _ shouldn’t _ be this happy with this? That- that we should um… I dunno…”

Emily’s heart picked up pace behind her ribs, unheard but certainly not unfelt as fear caused her eyes to widen slightly in the moon’s soft light, and seemed to make the whispers in the back of her mind louder.

_ Bleeding is bad, _ they said,  _ and you shouldn’t be happy with it, you should be scared, you are scared and you are helpless and you need to run, you need to run far and fast and be careful because you never know what beasts you might attract running around with the scent of blood on you. _

“...run away,” Emily provided, finishing the sentence - and the way Lena’s head nodded, jerkily and frightened, made her own heart clench up instantly.

“Maybe,” she whispered in reply, holding Lena tightly back to her chest, “yeah, maybe I worry about that sometimes, but it- that’s just natural, I think. Everyone gets worried sometimes, yeah?”

There was a longer than normal pause before Lena nodded, snuggling back into her embrace. “Yeah. Guess so. Just… don’t like it, is all, but I guess so - s’just natural. B’sides, as long as you’re here, I think this has got to be pretty excellent.”

“Yeah,” Emily sighed, the scent of Lena’s hair helping drive away the lingering fear at the back of her mind in a way that wasn’t so different from Amélie - the way she’d get rid of the fear and the pain with a nice sharp kiss on the neck. “Her, too.”

Lena nodded firmly, quickly. “Oh, of course, her too. I hope-” She cut off, though, until Emily nudged her shoulder a little to prompt her to continue. “I just- I hope things get back to normal soon. I kinda… I miss her, y’know.”

Emily hummed against the back of Lena’s neck, nodding softly. “Me too, love, me too.”

One worry supplanted another, and gone were the whispers that said she should run - there instead were others which said that she would never be held close again, not by Amélie, never pinned back against a wall or held tight under the thick blankets of one of the beds.

She knew that Lena was worrying about it too, through whatever link that lovers shared, and her arms wrapped a little tighter - and Lena’s hand squeezed more firmly on hers in reply, a gentle reminder to each other that, whatever else came, they were there.

Their hands drifted to that little carved wooden heart again, fingers interlaced and holding until the difference between skin and wood, between Lena’s fingers and Emily’s, blended through into nothing, and consciousness ebbed from them as surely as the moon ever waned.

Just as surely, though, it would return in time.

  
  


\---

 

Days, weeks, all blending through into each other much the same as the last; the Witch and Amélie in almost constant contact and Emily and Lena mostly left to deal with the house, as any servants would expect.

They carried out their duties, but any of their worries over the status quo permanently changing soon proved unfounded - it was the eleventh night, a week after the boar was served and left untouched for them to feast on afterward, that Amélie’s fangs returned to their flesh.

Her lips, fixed desperately on Mercy’s neck, sought out the Witch’s powerful pulse and blood, the pristine perfection of it which she could hardly comprehend. Every time she recalled it, she could only think that she was exaggerating - that time had led her to see the thing in a more favourable light than the truth, as was so often the case, but no.

If anything, in fact, quite the opposite.

Every time, every bite, every mouthful and every taste of the Witch’s blood, she expected to be so delightful - and it only ever proved to be  _ better _ than she’d recalled, better than she’d expected, better than she could possibly have imagined.

That night, however, it was not to be the case.

The Witch turned her head away with a sigh, lifting up her wine glass to be refilled once more as she pressed the Countess’ head back with a single fingertip. “And what if my neck isn’t feeling like being bitten tonight, my dear? You have other food to eat, stop bothering me for it.”

Amélie had scowled at first, pouted almost, but then Emily had set up on the table in her regular spot - neck bared and a red napkin held in place - and the Countess had hardly waited the space of three of her swift hopeful heartbeats to pierce her skin with sharp fangs and guzzle at her sweet lifeblood.

Emily and Lena were quite relieved by the events of that evening, talking about it amongst themselves afterward, and it came to be semi-routine as time went on; Amélie would not feed on them or lay with them with nearly the same regularity as she had before the Witch’s arrival, but at least once or twice every day or two, depending on Mercy’s whims and inclinations.

Sometimes, it would be days without a drop of their blood - days without even  _ seeing  _ Amélie and Mercy, even - and then other days the Witch would sigh and roll her eyes and direct the Countess toward the servants, either with a word or a gesture or simply by shoving her that way.

It was almost enough to inspire them to speak up, her treatment of their Mistress, but it was so very difficult to have the resolve to complain when Amélie’s lips were on their necks with her fangs washing away all the negatives in the world. So very hard to find any reason to raise a fuss when her hands roamed their bodies and they were finally together again.

Not to mention the fact that, quite simply,  _ she _ hadn’t said anything about it.

It was impossible to deny Amélie anything she wanted, for either of them, and neither of them even tried. If she wasn’t complaining, they didn’t feel right doing so.

The return to the norm was appreciated, though, and it flushed all other thoughts and worries out of their mind.

Fangs always did.

 

\---

 

“I think we should do something special for ‘er.”

Emily quirked an eyebrow over to Lena as they repositioned one of the settees - too far from the fireplace, apparently, and Mercy wanted it nearer, so they moved it.

Even though they’d moved it the other direction just two days beforehand.

“What’d you have in mind there, love?” Emily set down her end of the furniture and then went to grab the little side table as Lena flopped onto the settee with a huff.

“Don’t know! Just, y’know, something nice and special, just… y’know, ‘cause.” Lena kicked her feet idly, eyes fixed on them - every part the picture of avoidance, and Emily knew precisely why.

They didn’t really talk about the Witch anymore, didn’t talk about Mercy. It was clear from Amélie’s fervor that Mercy was favoured, and clear from the Witch’s eye and fickle nature that she would perhaps be better left  _ un- _ irritated.

Sleeping dogs, and all that.

As a result, they never really mentioned her by name, but rather let the implication hang - and it hung plenty clearly, as Emily set down the side table and collapsed next to Lena with a heavy sigh.

“Yeah,” she agreed, “Amélie definitely deserves a nice treat. She’s been going all-out with these feasts and meals, all this preparation - gonna wear herself out at this rate.”

Lena snorted, rolling her eyes. “Yeah, right, as if that’ll happen. Still, yeah, she deserves something nice.”

The fire was stacked high and burning bright despite the daylight outside, because - in the Witch’s words - they called them  _ fire _ places rather than  _ wood _ places for a reason. Sometimes, Emily felt like she was just making things up to see what she could get away with - a petulant child who nobody had ever told ‘no’, pushing the limits further and further.

Not that she could  _ do  _ anything about it. Nor even say anything.

“Maybe something kind of in keeping with that, eh?” Emily twisted her head around, raising an eyebrow. “Something fancy, given all the effort she’s been going to for that and all.”

She was glad she’d turned her head around, because it put her in a good position to see the slow grin spreading across Lena’s face - that look she got when someone gave her an idea and she started to run with it.

“Oh, yeah, that’ll work  _ real _ well I think, love,” she murmured, eyes unfocused thoughtfully on the fireplace.

With a laugh, Emily flipped back over, grinning as they just cuddled in front of the fireplace - but not for long, not long at all before beads of sweat were forming and threatening to drip.

“Too bloody close to the fireplace,” Emily sighed as they stood and made their way out of the room, the sound of a distant bell’s ring summoning them to that wing of the house to tend to whatever absurd whim had occurred to the Witch this time.

They really didn’t see what all the fuss was. Despite a bit of a hostile tint to her glare, she really seemed mostly harmless.

Not that they could have known, of course, the truth of the matter - they had no experience with the Witch’s darker side, and besides, they were only human.

Or at least, very nearly.

 

\---

 

The Witch’s finger stroked at her temple, catching a stray bit of hair and pushing it behind her ear, and Amélie sank into the gesture even as something in her gut recoiled - as it did with every contact, with every word, every time the Witch called her  _ my dear. _

Push, and pull. Joy and revulsion. Love and hate.

The night couldn’t exist without the day.

As was the world, thus was the Witch; cruelly dismissive at times and warmly embracing at others, all things at all times. Or, at the very least,  _ any _ thing at  _ any _ time.

Amélie had long since reconciled it, because it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter if she could foresee the Witch’s harsh temper, nor forestall it - any more than it mattered whether she could foresee and approaching storm nor slow it.

She might be wettened by the rains, she might be singed by the lightning, but she would survive until the clouds cleared and then there would be another day past it.

Another storm, past that, in due time, as well.

Mealtimes meant little, save for the routine they held - Amélie needed no particular schedule to eat, rather being driven only by her internal clock of hunger’s fickleness. At times, she might feed only once in a day, and at others she might tax Emily and Lena both to the point of exhaustion with how much she drank from their veins.

Not that they ever complained.

No, mealtimes meant little to her, but it was handy routine to keep - and, for the pair of them at least, it meant some. For Emily and Lena. The Witch seemed to need no sustenance from food, erring instead toward the desserts and fruits and beverages of a meal though she did demand that a full feast be  _ prepared _ at least.

It was Emily and Lena who ate the actual food, of course.

Which was what made it so strange that one of them seemed to be absent.

Amélie’s eyes searched Lena’s, searching for answers with Emily nowhere to be seen, as the Witch’s finger ran its course again over her temple - and then carried on down, along her jaw to her chin to direct her head, and her gaze, elsewhere.

Toward the Witch, of course.

The Countess paid her attention and tribute in the forms of longing looks and soft touches, firm kisses and almost-desperate scrapes of teeth on skin, but that roaming fingertip held her back from anything further.

It would seem that it was not yet time for  _ her _ dinner, at least not by the Witch’s hand.

Hand, or vein.

Still Lena stood, though, and a few moments later - after Mercy had decided it was time to begin the meal - they both looked to her expectantly.

Two massive silver domes sat, one on either side of her, each on a trolley of its own. Trolleys which Amélie didn’t recognize, surely obtained during one of their little trips into town, large and sturdy and capable of carrying great weight, surely.

A good plan, for which she silently commended them - the pair had needed to struggle to bear the boar out on its platter previously, and had nearly dropped it as a result. Heavier trolleys were clearly a necessity, but it had slipped her mind to mention it to them, driven away by soft touches and urgently hissed whispers as so many other thoughts had been.

The first dome, Lena lifted away to reveal a whole roast suckling pig - skin glistening, with a whole apple looking bright and fresh in its mouth, curled in the centre of the platter.

Amélie’s eyes flicked to the Witch, to gauge her reaction, but she seemed as unimpressed as ever; the Countess still had no further idea about what her life might have entailed, but clearly these sorts of feasts were no uncommon occurrence for her.

Something larger next time, something finer, something more exotic or rare; Amélie found herself wondering how far she could get in a night’s travel, without her horse, with nothing to slow her down - or whether perhaps she should make a longer journey of it, buying days at inns to stretch out her travel to the farthest countryside she could find, to travel until she met the sea and there catch some beast which had never been seen before, and bring that home to present to Mercy.

Perhaps that, then, might be enough to impress her Mistress.

These thoughts all stilled as Lena lifted away the other dome, a glint in her eye and a grin on her lips, to reveal underneath - curled up on the silver platter as bare as the pig had been, and equally with a bright, fresh, red apple in the mouth - Emily.

The sight of her, presented as a meal - which of course, she was, but seeing it demonstrated like  _ that _ was something entirely unexpected, the juxtaposition and comparisons of her to the pig alongside, and a laugh lurched from Amélie’s throat at the sight.

It had been a very long time since she’d laughed. Truly laughed, out of humour and joy, rather than out of dismissal or pity.

It had been so very long.

Her laughter wasn’t creaky or dry from lack of use the way the rest of the Château had been. No, it was full and bright, only redoubling as she saw Emily start to shake with giggles of her own which were unable to escape due to the fruit jammed like a gag in her mouth - Lena, laughing as well, shoulders shaking but unable to succumb entirely or else risk dropping the platter’s dome.

It was a delight, and another one of their little inventive moments: just one more instance of them going to some special effort to please her, and of course the Witch would ask for the same as she did with the fancy meals, and of course Amélie was happy to comply. Happy to go and try to do everything and anything the Witch asked, to try to bring her joy.

Joy, which felt so  _ good. _

Amélie couldn’t recall the last time she’d truly laughed - before Gérard’s death, certainly, but quite possibly even some time before that as well. She certainly had, but never quite like this, never out of this combination of shock and hilarity.

The Countess did do her best to maintain her composure, but it was ever so difficult, and every attempt to reign the laughter in to bare snickers caused a  _ snort _ to jump from her nose, and with the suckling pig so close at hand that only made her laugh all the more.

She nearly fell from her chair, her laughter joined in chorus by Lena’s and even a bit by Emily’s, the apple slipping some from her mouth.

There was a voice absent from the choir, however.

Absent for some fair time, but not forever - after all, the Witch  _ had _ promised she would always return. She would never be absent forever.

“...so… you think this  _ funny, _ do you?”

All of the joy of the situation, all of the humour, bled out in an instant - faster than the Countess had ever managed to bleed any of her prey - at the clear ice in the Witch’s tone, the obvious distaste and seething fury.

Amélie had heard it before, had heard it all before, and she whirled to defend herself but she was too late.

All it ever took was a word.

_ “Silence,” _ the Witch hissed, her face mottling with angry red, and Amélie was unable to forestall the storm - left open-mouthed and silent, unable to speak up and assuage the gathering clouds in Mercy’s expression as her eyes flashed, and outside the windows, the skies did the same.

_ “Funny?” _ She hissed, standing from the table abruptly enough that her chair clattered back to the ground. “What is- is this some attempt at a jab, at a slight? Some- again, as last time, you’ve done it again you- you  _ infuriating brat, _ you-”

Amélie shook her head desperately, or at least as desperately as a Countess was ever permitted, because this had been of course no matter of intent. She had no words with which to defend herself, left only with expressions and outheld hands and a look of pleading.

However, she was not the only party present.

“Hold on,” Lena interrupted angrily, “you don’t get to go and-”

“Silence,” the Witch hissed to her as well, a sharp command of the sort that would have felled Amélie.

Not so for Lena, however.

Mere human or not, she shook off the Witch’s demand without seemingly an effect, with a frustrated gesture and a shout. “No!  _ You  _ be silent for once, you bloody hag - you’ve been nothing but a ruddy nuisance since you got here and she deserves better’n how you treat her, you-  _ bitch!” _

The whole time, Lena approached, the heavy platter’s silver dome still in hand - a hand that gripped tighter, Lena’ knuckles turning white with strain. She had been honed on the cold streets, on the chopping block and the tavern kitchens, bearing weights of ale and mead and meals for hours on end without pause, and while the dome was formidable it posed no barrier to her.

Indeed, she held it more as a weapon than a shield.

There was a flash of something in Mercy’s eyes, as they shifted to catch Amélie’s - Amélie, who still stretched her silent mouth open in some attempt to say something, to defend herself, Amélie who could only watch as the most powerful being she’d ever met was unable to stop the words or the advances of a girl who she’d so simply stolen away from a tavern, who never questioned her word, who never could find a scrap of will to stand against her.

She had found it to stand against Mercy, though.

The entire time - for all of her life, it felt - Amélie had seen the Witch as undefeatable. That first night, perhaps, not as much, but that was the proof of it. She’d given her greatest effort, with all of her speed and strength - both far in excess of Lena’s, certainly - and she’d been unable to manage a single thing, sent to her knees in an instant.

Yet the Witch’s words did nothing against Lena.

Another shout of “Silence,” and then one to kneel, and Lena listened to neither - she approached in growing fury, even as Emily rose from the trolley behind her and pulled out the apple, and strode up to join. 

Amélie kept expecting the Witch to do something else, something greater: to bring up bindings of thick rope or barbed wire, as had held her wrists so many times, and to truss Emily and Lena up like a pair of chickens to be roasted; to conjure fire in her hand as Amélie had seen her do countless times in the fireplace and throw it at the pair, or perhaps simply to inspire the flames within the cages of their ribs to turn their living bodies into hearths which would crackle in the night.

Nothing, though.

Nothing.

Even the commands stopped after a few more failed attempts as the two kept berating Mercy, growing in volume and ferocity with every step closer to her that they took.

The Witch took a pace backward, and looked to Amélie again.

The Countess had never seen her retreat, not even a single step, and the look in her eyes was completely alien - alien for  _ her _ , but it was an expression that Amélie recognized well. It was one she saw during every hunt, every feeding from a human that wasn’t from Emily or Lena.

_ Fear. _

Then, in an instant, it shifted; like a flicker of light through the clouds giving way to the steely grey of the storm again, that moment of fear gave way to the Witch’s cruel and cold determination as her feet set in place, solid against the stones, and new words hissed from between her barely parted lips.

“Silence them.”

Though they were not shouted, those words cut clearly through the din of the other two to Amélie’s ears - as surely as  _ her _ words then sounded in the ears of the two approaching.  _ “Fermez-la,  _ both of you.”

Their shouts of indignation and anger died in an instant, as soon as her words sounded, and the Witch let out a triumphant laugh which she twisted into another command. “Now  _ stop _ them, my dear.”

“Stop, both of you. Stand still.”

Of course, they did, their feet falling still against the stone.

The servant cannot deny the Mistress, and it had taken the Witch only a moment to find the right link of the chain upon which to tug - and now, with her grip on it firm, she strode forward with a cocky grin and a laugh.

“Ah, so foolish, pitiful things,” she locked onto their eyes as she spoke, reveling in the fury she still saw there. “Oh, they  _ do _ hate me, don’t they? Do they think I care?”

She paused for a moment, leaning in toward them - Emily still bare, Lena still bearing the platter dome, but neither able to take a pace - and cupped a hand to her ear mockingly. “Mmm, quiet as the grave.”

Then, her eyes flashed to the Countess’ - the Countess, who still sat in her chair, fearing the approaching storm, and she saw in Mercy’s eyes that there had been no change.

“How  _ dare _ you insult me like this,” the Witch hissed, stepping past Emily and Lena who stood with their feet fixed in place as if by nails. “How dare you - to invite me in, and then despoil it with this? Hmm? Answer me!”

Amélie’s mouth reacted before her brain, desperate to follow the Witch’s instruction and pushing out a blank noise devoid of meaning which she promptly swallowed back and replaced with words. “I meant no disrespect, Mistress, I only- I do not understand what has you so distraught.”

“So  _ distraught?  _ Ha! Well, you stupid, ignorant, infuriating brat, let’s see if you can figure it out, shall we? Walk through it, step by step, like any  _ child _ would.” Mercy crossed her arms, fixing her with an expectant look.

The Countess was well used to the Witch’s anger, but not quite like this; no subtle mockery like an assassin’s blade, but rather a barbarian’s cudgel wielded with fury.

She didn’t even know where to begin. Panic through her mind and her heart, even as something deep within and in the back of her mind snarled at the way her staff were being treated -  _ her _ staff,  _ her _ Emily,  _ her _ Lena, not the Witch’s,  _ hers. _

“I-I-” Amélie swallowed to stop her stammering, “We were about to have dinner. Your pig was revealed, and then my meal as well.”

“And  _ then?” _

A frown flickered across the Countess’ face as the Witch’s tone and her expression made it clear that  _ then _ was precisely what she was angry about, but Amélie couldn’t begin to guess why. “And… then, I laughed. It was a joke and I laughed.”

The look that crossed Mercy’s face wasn’t novel, it wasn’t the first time Amélie had seen it, but it was still fairly unknown even for its recurrences. It was the same one which cropped up from time to time - often accompanied by one of the Witch’s confusing mentions of love - and Amélie never knew what to do with it.

“Exactly.” Mercy’s words were soft, slight gasped sighs with no strength behind them and equal parts exasperation and despair. “Exactly, my dear, you laughed - and tell me, have you ever laughed with  _ me? _ No. You never have. Now, tell me, how am I to react to that?”

A swift breath proved to be not swift enough as Amélie prepared for words, but the Witch beat her to them, speaking with an emphatic gesture back over her shoulder and the same despairing expression on her face. “What, do you think I  _ care? _ Whether you favour them with some kind treatment you’ve never shown me? Answer me.”

She’d been so close - so close to saying that she’d never laughed at Mercy because the Witch never joked, so close to saying she hadn’t expected her  _ own _ laugh and certainly hadn’t  _ intended _ it, so close to saying that she would gladly laugh, happily laugh, would laugh every single time Mercy spoke if that was what she wished.

So close to so many excuses, but then the Witch had to go and ask another question.

Amélie wished it was any other question, as well, because she could feel the answer clawing its way up her throat at the Witch’s bidding - she knew what the answer would be, and she only wished the question had been different because she knew how Mercy would react, and there was a problem with the question.

That being that Amélie could not lie to her Mistress.

She knew well that the Witch wanted her as a prize, and that a good hound would not answer the call of anyone other than their Mistress. She had seen clearly the looks of dominance or even jealousy that the Witch had shot toward the other two in her time there, and she knew what it all meant.

That was why she feared the words she was about to say, but it was too late - the question had been asked, the command given, and she could not lie.

The servant cannot deny the Mistress.

“Yes.” Amélie swallowed thickly. “I do.”

The despair lingered in Mercy’s expression for longer than Amélie had thought it would - stirred to stay by shock, perhaps, but every storm clears in time and every day shifts to night, and her face changed just the same.

Changed and twisted, snarled and sneered.

“You forget your place,” the Witch hissed, lips pulling back to show her teeth, “and it is  _ beneath _ me. On your knees.”

Amélie knelt swiftly, dipping her head - she knew what would come next, she would be punished; she had misbehaved and would be punished, but it was nothing she had not endured before. There was no storm that could overtake the ones she’d already weathered.

Or, at least, so she thought.

Even the most skilled of Huntresses can be wrong from time to time.

The Witch approached and grabbed at the collar of her shirt, tearing it away as if it was tissue paper - Amélie hardly reacted as buttons scattered across the stone, but they could be replaced. A new coat would do well, even though that one had been unworn previously to that night, but it was no real concern.

The rest of her clothing followed, shreds and tatters of it as the Witch ripped it off in a devolving fury, but not with any sexual indications - there was no lust in her eyes nor her hand, only fury, and her nails didn’t scrape where they happened to meet skin, they  _ scratched _ , and her eyes didn’t linger and gaze when they fell upon Amélie’s, they  _ glared. _

In time, though, storms all seem alike.

Amélie  _ did _ feel bad, but not as much as she once had. She was hungry, but she was often hungry - she was bared and debased, but she had been before. She was in no worse condition than than she had been at so many other points, and she’d still reclaimed her title and her home. She’d bought a new horse.

The Witch slapped her, knocking her to the ground; ropes twisted around her wrists and then flashed into barbed wire, and Amélie cried out as the barbs pierced her skin and she hissed when she was flung to the stones, but she knew that she was a bad dog being punished.

She could still maintain her composure.

There was no need to become some blubbering child, to lose herself and beg - yes, she’d been stripped and disgraced and insulted and beaten, but she could still hold on to that pride.

Or, at least, so she thought.

The Witch bid her to stand, and she did, instantly following her Mistress’ orders - she moved to the table as instructed, bent forward over it as instructed, spread her legs as instructed. She expected something to be pressed into her, of course, given her position, but what she did  _ not _ expect was how much it would hurt.

Not just hurt, either - as something shoved deep into her, more deeply than Gérard or any other man had ever managed, it felt incredibly and entirely  _ wrong _ and  _ bad. _ Not simply because there was no love nor even lust behind the gesture, not simply because it was a penetration borne of anger and spite rather than any of the emotions that  _ should _ have inspired it, not simply because Amélie had been unprepared for its arrival and given no time to adapt, but something more than that.

It hurt like a violently pulled muscle, deep in the core; like a traumatically painful memory did in the heart, but of course with a different location; like Amélie imagined a bullet might, the last bullet, the one which would take one’s life - it was an intensely, immensely negative sensation, and her mouth pulled open to let out a shriek that she didn’t expect.

“Oh, don’t like  _ that _ , do you, my dear?” The Witch’s taunting voice sounded from behind her, unseen even as the thing - what _ ever _ it was - was forced further into Amélie’s pained and complaining nethers.

The Countess couldn’t reply, though, not in words. She tried, tried to say that it was true, that she didn’t like it, but all that came out was a shout and a cry that refused to be formed into anything more refined than that as the Witch’s hips pressed against her rear. It was as if she’d lost control of her mouth - as if the Witch had  _ ordered _ her to do nothing more than scream, but she’d done no such thing.

Although, it did occur to Amélie that perhaps there would be no joy in it if she had. Would she herself have appreciated any prey which simply lay down and died because she told it to?

No, the joy was in the hunt, and Mercy’s hunt had always been for humiliation and pain - taunting was her foremost pastime, it seemed, and torment as well. She was quite skilled at them both.

It was then that the Countess realized there was more to it than the punishment, and of course there was. Mercy had no desire to beat her blankly, no wish to rain blows upon her while she sat there unmoving, uncaring, unchanged for it.

The Witch wanted, of course, to  _ have _ an effect. She wanted to win, she wanted to get through whatever armour Amélie could erect and shatter it, and dig into the soft flesh behind and there find her sustenance.

Quite like her servant, then, the Mistress.

She didn’t want Amélie to sit there and weather the punishment unaffected. She wanted Amélie to hurt, because if a child was never burned they would never learn to fear fire. Because if Amélie didn’t hurt, then Mercy hadn’t  _ won _ . Because, because - a thousand possible explanations, and the Countess didn’t know which one was the truth.

Perhaps all of them.

Amélie gasped but it felt like her lungs could hold no air, like they were leaking it out as swiftly as she could gulp it in, but a hand grabbing her hair and yanking her head around removed her ability even to breathe.

With her neck twisted so sharply she could scarcely whistle a breath in, but she could see what was happening behind her - and within her - as the Witch’s hips withdrew.

Silver.

Elaborate leather straps crisscrossed Mercy’s hips and upper thighs, holding tightly to her and bearing proudly a sculpted silver cock - large by any standards, certainly - and it gleamed in the candlelight almost as dangerously as the Witch’s smile did.

“You stupid bitch,” the Witch whispered, softly, tenderly, no more venom in her tone than in her gentle smile as her hips snapped forward again, burying the silver sculpture painfully deep within Amélie and forcing a desperately reedy scream from her twisted throat. “You thoughtless, ignorant whore - why do you insist on carrying on like this? On making me correct you, time and time again…”

Her thrusts became more consistent, but never regular enough that the Countess could expect them and brace herself - the Witch was too good for that, altering her pace enough to ensure that every rough shunt was a total shock to Amélie’s system, forcing more weak cries from her throat and making tears of pain well in her eyes.

Well in her eyes, but not fall - she refused to let them do that, and she was grateful for the sharp angle her neck was held at. It prevented her from wailing, from losing her composure; it hurt, yes, it hurt unimaginably much - she recognized it now as being the same as that silver blade, so many nights and years ago, but again and again and again as the Witch continued to berate her.

Puncture and penetration were perhaps not so different.

Amélie had discarded all of the silver paraphernalia she could from around the house, or instructed Lena and Emily to sell it off - with the exception of those highly sought-after candlesticks, but even those had been relegated to a distant corner of a storage cellar - due to the way she reacted with it.

Pain at the mere brush of contact as if it was a hot coal, angry redness of the skin as if by some rash if contact continued for long enough - not that she’d ever let the silver dwell for long against her skin.

Not long enough to familiarize herself with the feeling, clearly.

Yet she had no option then, as the Witch continued to fuck her viciously whilst softly saying the most derogatory things she could think of - inventive new insults at Amélie’s lineage or proclivities or the joy she’d taken in murdering her husband - and Amélie could say nothing to stop her. Could not deny it.

The servant cannot deny the Mistress.

“You pointless, meaningless whelp - you still resist me, still fight me, still run off on your own basal urges and whatever impulse occurs to you rather than  _ behaving _ like a good girl should.” The Witch’s voice remained soft - far softer than her hands, one still pulling on Amélie’s hair as if it was a garrote around her worst enemy’s neck, and the other alternating slaps with scratches on her back, her sides, anywhere it could reach.

That free roaming hand grabbed at the rough bindings around the Countess’ wrists, barbs still buried in her skin, and pulled on them in a way that put a particularly keening edge on Amélie’s next thin shout.

The iron didn’t hurt much. At least, not normally, but it would seem that the exposure to silver had either weakened or sensitized her system - or perhaps both - and the barbs felt like angry insects viciously stinging and tunneling through her wrists.

“I could make  _ these _ silver as well,” the Witch hissed, her voice’s softness leaving as swiftly as the insults did. “I could - I could bind you  _ entirely _ ,  _ wreathe _ you in silver thorns to ravage your skin, but I don’t because I prize you, my dear, my Amélie. I want these wounds to heal and fade. Even now - for some reason - I want you whole, intact, unharmed, but you  _ insist _ on  _ forcing my hand!” _

With that shout, the Witch pulled out of her and stepped away - released the hold on her hair and her wrists - and Amélie slumped to the ground. She willed her muscles to hold her upright, but they refused; her knees folded under her and she slid off of the table to the floor.

It was only a moment’s respite.

Only enough to draw a breath.

Strong hands lifted her hips, and she felt the silver sculpture shove into her again - her breath of respite promptly fleeing her lungs as a screech which she cut off abruptly, biting her lips harshly together.

A hand quickly grabbed at her jaw, pulling it open again. “Not so hard, my dear,” the Witch cooed into her ear as her hips snapped forward again and drove Amélie into the floor. “I happen to like your lips  _ un _ damaged, and we can’t have you accidentally spilling that blood everywhere, now can we? It’s far too powerful for that.”

Amélie's lips simply pressed together, then, her teeth unable to find them and render their aid in holding back the tide of pained noises and shouts that built up behind them.

Every one, though - every suppressed shout or scream - was heard fully in the Countess’ mind, and every one joined a thousand of its fellows from over the years; yes, she had misbehaved, but was she to gain no benefit from all she  _ had _ done? No leniency?

That dark coil deep within her writhed, rebelling still against the Witch, and all the moreso with the treatment at hand - but there was nothing to be done about it.

She could not fight back, only simmer in her own hatred.

“Still you refuse to give yourself over to me - still you fight and resist, still you keep that bedroom with its grim remnants,” the Witch muttered swiftly, seemingly more to herself than to anyone else - the words weren’t accompanied by any actions in particular, or at least not in any seemingly choreographed fashion.

Simply the same continuous torment, with different words laid overtop.

Then, though, the Witch seemed to recall what she was doing, and grabbed a handful of the Countess’ hair again to turn her head around until they could meet eyes. “You treat me as lesser than the others, still - than some little  _ humans _ , and then you tell me that you think I  _ care? _ Ha! My dear - I think it is  _ you _ who cares too much over them, but I can fix that.”

Amélie’s eyes could widen no further, her throat could complain no more hoarsely, but her mind somehow managed to fill with more pain and fear and anger at the words and the idea - the thought that Mercy might do something to them, might take them _ away _ from her.

Yes, they were replaceable, of course they were. Everything around the Château was, but she would be getting rid of it on  _ her _ terms, nobody else’s.

She had no doubt that she would tire of their antics one day - that Lena’s jokes or Emily’s gestures would fail to bring any hint of a smirk to her lips, that the pair’s warmth would feel lacking and inadequate, and that their blood would be a boring, banal broth of a meal with no joy in it.

That hadn’t happened  _ yet _ , however.

They were not boring and tired old remnants the way the curtains and the chairs had been, they were still quite vibrant, and Amélie had no intent to be rid of them even a moment sooner than  _ she _ decided - after all, they were not the Witch’s playthings. Not the Witch’s servants.

They were  _ hers. _

The events of the night had made that abundantly clear.

They did not obey Mercy’s words and she seemed powerless against them, raising no walls or ropes to defend herself, her conjurations seemingly without effect on the pair - and yes, they stood now fixed in place, but that was due to  _ Amélie’s _ word.

Amélie’s word, due to the Witch.

A new, more worrying idea occurred to her - that the Witch might simply order  _ her _ to kill them, to dash them upon the stones or throw them into the fireplace, and she might not even be granted one final mouthful of their exquisite blood, one last embrace to draw their warmth from, one single word.

That she might - as with Gérard - not get the opportunity to say goodbye.

“Call them over,” Mercy whispered in her ear, thrusting again and causing pain to overtake worry for an instant in Amélie’s mind, but only an instant - and she could not deny.

Lena and Emily came when she called, their mouths shut and silent but fury clear in their eyes and their faces - red in the cheeks and noses and neck, eyes wet and glistening in the firelight.

“Have them sit down on the stones, will you my dear?” The Witch’s voice had shifted again to passive disinterest, at odds with the hand nearly tearing Amélie’s hair from her scalp or her hips which continued to slap against Amélie’s bottom and thighs.

Of course, Emily and Lena sat, and they were so near that Amélie could so easily hear their heartbeats racing with anger, vitriolically galloping in their chests, and it made her so much more hungry.

The bindings and the silver, the pain and the weakness it brought, all of it had her feeling like a caged animal - and now with the other two so nearby to be heard and smelled, she was almost yowling at the bars of her enclosure to be released or fed.

Almost.

She was a  _ Countess. _ She was a huntress. She wouldn’t debase herself by begging, for food or for Emily and Lena to be spared or to be freed or for anything else - not even though it was clear that the Witch wanted it, not until the Witch  _ ordered _ it and gave her no other option, and in doing so, removed all of the joy of the hunt’s success.

Or, at least, so she thought.

For a moment, she thought that the torment might perhaps be over. Mercy’s thrusts picked up pace for a few after Emily and Lena’s approach, but then trailed off and stopped entirely. The insults no longer flowed. Even the hand in her hair loosened up, letting her fall forward limply against the cold stone floor with a soft cry.

Not that she minded that the stone was cold. It was no different than herself, than her life.

Not cold was the Witch - she was warm, almost uncomfortably so where she touched Amélie’s skin as she leaned forward, laying herself overtop of the Countess until her lips were just brushing Amélie’s ears. She had stopped thrusting but not withdrawn, the silver phallus still painfully stretching Amélie open.

“Now,” the Witch whispered, quietly enough that her words were almost swallowed up by the soft crackling noises of the distant fire, “you think I care about them, but I do not.  _ You, _ my dear, do, and we can’t have that. We can’t have you prizing anybody above myself, or thinking that they are greater, showing them affections I am denied. It’s bad enough that you haven’t yet learned to love me.”

“But I do!” Amélie protested, weakly, her voice hoarse and distorted with her cheek pressed up against stone where she slumped on the floor.

It gave the Witch pause.

For a moment.

“So you say,” she replied a moment later with distaste clear in her voice, “but I’ve seen little evidence of it, my dear - perhaps you are lying to me even now, somehow, some new foolish attempt at rebellion which I’ve not properly  _ quelled _ yet.”

“I am not, I swear,” the Countess hissed, but was interrupted before she could go any further.

“Do you hate me?”

Amélie sighed her response with a soft nod of her head - all her overstrained and weak muscles would grant her. “Yes.”

“...and do you hate  _ them?” _

Her eyes flicked up, to meet Lena’s looking down to her. The hatred she saw there, the anger and the fury, it was like nothing she’d ever seen before - but she thought that she had  _ felt _ it at least.

Did she hate them?

She was irritated by them, at times; when their hearts would flag or their consciousness would, and interrupt far more pleasant activities with sleep or rest. She wanted to kill them, often, to drain their blood until there was not a drop left for them to use as fuel. She was angry at them, even, occasionally, but did she hate them?

“No,” Amélie whispered.

“We shall see about that by the end of the night,” the Witch hissed softly in her ear, hand gripping more tightly in her hair to lift her head from the floor. “Now, my dear, it is time for you to be punished  _ properly _ . Tell them…”

She paused for a moment, taking a deep breath in.

Amélie could hear Mercy’s heart trill with excitement, and it made her hunger and her anger both snarl and snap within her, but she was incapable of releasing any of it. She could not stand against Mercy.

“...tell them,” the Witch murmured softly in her ear, “to  _ pity you.” _

In an instant she was pulled upright, held up by one hand in her hair and one on her bindings as the Witch’s rough thrusts began again, and the first cry of pained shock fuelled the words, the command she’d been compelled to give to the others.

“Pity me!”

She saw it.

She  _ watched _ it, and heard it in their hearts; the furious lines of anger in their faces melting to the soft sad ones, the steel leaving Emily’s eyes and Lena’s as well, their heartbeats slowing, their posture relaxing. Firmly-clenched fists unfurled, and she hated it.

She hated it.

She hated the way they looked at her, as if she was some pitiful thing, some wet orphaned dog in the gutter of the street - she was a  _ Countess, _ a huntress, a monster and a fearsome one at that; she had a whole village in terror, she could hold anyone under her thumb and make them do as she wished, throw off their rings and discard their wallets and run off into the woods to be devoured, she could rip them all to shreds faster than they could react…

...and they were  _ pitying her. _

“Loudly, now,” Mercy whispered in her ear, and Amélie could do nothing but pass the command along - and Emily and Lena immediately listened, complied, began to speak.

“Oh, my god - poor Amélie, that’s so awful, just-”

“So sad, look at her, that’s horrid. God I’d hate to be in that position!”

“I know! Ugh, that’s terrible, just makes you feel so bad for ‘er…”

They carried on, but she hardly heard it.

It was already too much.

The tears which had been wellings and the cries which had been stifled all spilled out at the disgustingly soft looks of Lena and Emily, at their sad and heartfelt words. At their pity.

Even though it had been her command.

Desperately Amélie tried to hold on to it - to some shred of composure or self-worth - but it was impossible in the face of that, of everything that she was being stripped away. She was strong, she was fast, she was capable - she told herself this, but it was no use.

“So sad she can’t even defend herself,” Emily murmured, shaking her head with a heavily saddened expression.

She was weak. She was useless. She was defenceless.

“Up here all alone in her castle, and then when she  _ does  _ get company in, it turns out like this,” Lena sighed, her lips slewing in distaste, and Amélie could not shake the feeling that the distaste was for  _ her _ because it was, it must have been, it could only be.

She was nothing. She was a misbehaving hound, she was a corpse which had been granted a second chance and had done nothing to deserve it, and had only spoiled it at every opportunity - and Gérard had paid the price for it, as had everyone else around her.

She was a dog in the gutter.

Tears streamed freely down her cheeks, as freely as the sobs which flew from her mouth, her entire body shaking with the force of her own crying as well as the Witch’s continued thrusts.

Not quite loudly enough to drown out Lena and Emily, though. Though she wished it would be - though she lent her own sobs further strength in some sad attempt to overpower their words and prevent them from reaching her ears, she failed, and of course she did. She was a failure, after all.

They pitied her.

...and she  _ deserved it. _

The Witch began to laugh, loudly and proudly but still not enough to overtake Emily and Lena’s words - but she laughed, cackled as Amélie cried, and then pulled the Countess’ head back and close.

One ear was filled with the Witch’s dark whisper, the other still hearing nothing but pity and pity and pity and her own cries.

“I could make you feel better, my dear,” the Witch offered, her voice filled with that same dark delight as always. “You know I could, you know how. All it would take is a word - one simple command from me, and you would enjoy this, and every pain would leave you in an instant the moment I told you to revel.”

It took only a little more thought than that first offer of life, the first night, with her shattered horse next to her.

“Please,” Amélie sobbed, wailed in some attempt to overcome the pitying voices that surrounded her, sounding more and more like a chorus as time went on - other voices rose from her memory, her parents and siblings and every other one with whom she’d become acquainted, and every one of them pitied her.

“Free me of this, rid me of it,” Amélie begged, shuddering as every muscle trembled with silver-induced weakness - even as something within her rebelled at the thought, snarled and fought against it and told her not to take another deal, not to ask for another favour, she begged.

“Please, I beg you.  _ Mercy.” _

The Witch’s soft chuckle might well have been coming from inside Amélie’s own head with how it sounded to her, and it was followed a moment later by, indeed, a single word. A single command.

Though not the one she’d hoped for.

_ “Suffer.” _

Amélie collapsed forward to the floor, none of the pain or horror abated in the slightest as the Witch let go of her bindings and her hair, and the former Countess painted the stones with her tears and filled the space with her screams and sobs, all overlaid atop the continuous chorus of pity.

“So sad, poor Amélie, so terrible, so awful…”

 

\---

 

The sun rose.

It always did. All else regardless, whether people had died or been born, overjoyed or horrified in the night, the sun still rose. The night always gave way to the day, in time.

When it did, the Witch finally stilled and stood. With a snap of her fingers, all of her constructs were undone; the straps and sculpture leaving her, and the barbed bindings leaving Amélie’s wrists.

The bindings left, but not the pity and not the pain.

Amélie continued to sob softly on the floor, Lena and Emily on either side of her tending to their duties exactly as they’d been instructed, a never-ending torrent of soft sad words which drowned Amélie more effectively than any lake could hope to.

“Now, my dear, I must be going,” the Witch sighed, looking down with a slight frown. “I really  _ do _ hope you learn your lesson this time, because if I’m honest, you may be nearing the point where you are not worth trying to teach any further.”

She snapped her fingers, a glass appearing in one hand filled with clear liquid; seemingly water, but there was no way to tell for certain.

Things often  _ appeared _ to be one way, but were another, with the Witch.

“Have them drink this,” she instructed idly, setting the glass on the ground on front of Amélie, about halfway between Emily and Lena. “I wouldn’t want their pitiful human voices getting strained - the glass will refill, and it alone will sustain them enough to keep up their task. Oh, and of course, neither they nor you are to move from your places.”

She turned, as if to leave, and then turned back with a grin on her lips. Stooping low, she lifted Amélie’s head with a single fingertip, looking deep into tear-soaked eyes.

“Oh, and one other thing, my dear,” Mercy murmured softly. “You are not to drink from  _ either _ of them. Hopefully between the pity, the lingering pain, the hunger - perhaps, you might this time learn your lesson.”

For a moment, that expression returned: that same sad desperation, as the Witch sighed and shook her head. “I hope, for your sake  _ and _ mine, that you do, my dear.”

Then, she was gone.

With nothing to hold her head up - no Witch, and no strength in her muscles after such a long exposure to silver, Amèlie’s head fell down until it struck the stone.

Not hard enough to drown out the words, though.

“God, that’s so awful - can’t feed on us? She’ll get so hungry though!”

“I know, love, it’s terrible, just horrid-”

She tried to block it out.

She failed.

...and of course she did. After all, she was a failure - worthless, useless, pointless failure, and she deserved it.

She deserved it all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you ever write something and then re-read it, and think, "Wow, _I _wrote that. I came up with that - that is _my_ idea, those horrid things came from my mind." I do, I most certainly do, and sometimes I even ask myself if thinking of such cruel things makes me a cruel person - if being able to imagine abuse means I might _be_ abusive - but, I've been assured that abusive people don't stop to ask themselves whether they're being abusive.__
> 
> __The Witch certainly didn't._ _


	9. A2S4: Remnants

**Act Two, Scene Four: Remnants**

 

\---

 

She curled on the floor near the head of the table.

As if huddling could do anything to lessen the pain, but the blows she suffered were not physical and no amount of curling up could stay them.

As if, by making herself into as small a ball as possible, she might be able to avoid some of the words which hit her like thieves’ blades in the night, like huntress’ arrows sticking out of a deer, like her own fangs and claws had so surely struck so many down, but Emily and Lena’s soft words of pity always flew true and she could never avoid even one of them.

As if she  _ deserved  _ to avoid any of the torment, as if she was capable of it, but she knew she was not in either case.

No longer was it only Lena and Emily whose voices sounded in her ears, but rather a cavalcade of them from her own history, all speaking in the same soft tones of pity.

Her mother, passed away in childbirth when Amélie was eight years old, her voice familiarly sharpened by a slight accent from further East where she’d spent so much of her formative time. “My poor girl,” her voice crooned softly in the depths of Amélie’s mind, but sounded as clear as either of the two who were physically present, “how much I loved you, how sad it is to see you like this, so broken.”

Broken, that was what she was - laying huddled and piled on the floor not out of protection, but as a corpse might, shattered and crumpled. Like her horse had, that first night.

Her father’s voice, deep but smooth, sounding so clearly that Amélie could see his face behind her closed eyes as her shoulders sook with ever-constant sobs. “My daughter,” he sighed, and she could practically see the shake of his head, the sad expression on his face, “how much I hoped for better than this, for you - the palace, the heights of society, those were to be your places, not this.”

Not this, on the floor as she was, the pain and weakness of silver fading from her body more and more with every passing hour and day, but as it did the weakness of pity overtook it and left her with no more strength and no more power than she’d had and very quickly the former Countess didn’t even know which voices were true and which were memories anymore.

Her older sister, or one of them, Fabienne, who had died in birthing her first child at sixteen; “poor sister,” she cried, “how horrible this is for you,” and horrible she was, and horrible she felt.

One of her younger brothers, Jacques, who’d broken a leg at five and succumbed to the illness that followed, his little high voice unchanged by time; “sister! Sister! Oh how sad!”

All of her siblings, every one of which she’d outlasted in life - the last of her line and the last of her family, she had been, before marrying Gérard - and Gérard himself as well, whose voice sounded in her head alongside the others, constant soft apologies and pity for her state and her fall and for everything else.

At the least, though, she had always loved the sound of his voice.

It was such a strange thing, to be dissected and split apart and tortured by something she loved - but then, perhaps, that had already been happening with the Witch.

In one direction or another.

More of them still, sounding in her head: teachers she’d had, for etiquette or for dance or for any of the other things which a young noble girl must learn, all making their sad disappointments clear within her mind; what few friends she’d been afforded joining them in chorus, every voice from her past rising up like a clawing hand which only dragged her further and further down into horror.

It was, in fact, enough that - some unknown amount of time later - she did not even notice when there was a change.

 

\---

 

Emily’s throat felt dry.

It was no surprise, given how long she’d been talking, but it was easy enough to deal with - she picked up the glass provided, and waited until Lena had just taken a breath to drink from it. After all, they couldn’t let it be silent. They needed to keep pitying  _ constantly. _

The glass itself always refilled, and the water seemed more than just water. Emily couldn’t recall the last time she’d eaten, but she wasn’t wasting away nor even really hungry - she couldn’t recall the last time almost anything had happened, in fact. She wasn’t sure how long they’d been sitting like that, on the floor on either side of Amélie, just talking.

It was all they’d been allowed to do. Not to move, not to be fed upon, simply to sit and stay and drink the water, and pity. Her mouth had run of its own volition, momentum and compulsion carrying it forward, but now its momentum had been spoiled by a large mouthful from the glass.

All that was left to carry it through was the compulsion.

The compulsion, which faded with every moment it wasn’t being reasserted - which gradually but steadily gave way to the whispers in the back of her mind, raising in volume slowly but surely.

_ You should leave, _ the whispers said.  _ Run. Run! Flee! _

Emily’s lips parted, her eyes meeting Lena’s, but there was no sound. No words.

No pity.

Not from her, at least. Lena still continued speaking, but for the moment, Emily found herself silent.

Her gaze flicked to the huddled form between them, naked and sobbing softly - she  _ should _ have been pitied. She should have looked pitiful, and there was a dim reminder of that in Emily’s mind, a soft tug of it in her heart, but there was more as well.

There was fear. An urge in her gut which pushed her to flee as surely as Amélie’s words had ever driven her to do anything.

One compulsion giving way to another, and Emily looked up again to see Lena looking back in confusion and worry, her mouth still spilling forth soft sadness.

The whispers told her to run, to flee, and she felt her legs shiver against the stones - shiver and tense, and prepare themselves for the flight to come.

She wouldn’t leave Lena, though. Not for anything, not while she had any choice in the matter.

A breath, taken in and held, but it never became words on Emily’s part. She let it fall from her as a simple exhalation and settled back down to the floor, sitting there with her mouth closed and lips tightly sealed.

It was a horrible situation, but that didn’t mean there was no chance to improve it.

 

\---

 

Two weeks.

Two weeks of terror slowly rising, choking off her gullet like an overly-ambitious mouthful, leading her heart to hammer every time Amélie - the Vampire, the Widowmaker - moved on the floor, shifting as she sobbed or pausing to take a breath to fuel a new wave of the same.

Two weeks of waiting, of watching Lena’s face with a soft urgency, hoping for some change. Two weeks of being afraid to whisper anything for fear of attracting the wrong sort of attention.

Two weeks of always looking to the shadows, the windows, quick flickering glances hoping to find the Witch if she returned - to see her and start to say things again, soft words of pity, and maybe avoid any retribution or punishment that might come.

Emily’s heart thumped with fury whenever she thought of her, of the Witch, Mercy; the way she’d acted, the things she’d done. There was some fear there, some, but it swiftly gave way to anger that made Emily’s fists clench and her teeth grind together.

Two weeks.

Then, Lena took a drink one day, and that was it.

Silence.

Save for the soft sobs.

Emily took a breath, went to speak, and found her voice rusty from disuse - she cleared it lightly, meeting Lena’s eyes.

What was there to say, though?

_ We need to get out of here, _ was a first thought that jumped to mind, fuelled by the fright and the urge to flee.  _ Are you alright, _ the first question that came to the forefront, driven by love and the look of pained concern on Lena’s face.  _ It’ll be okay, _ a reassurance that rose to prominence, raised by compassion and worry.

It all felt a little too small, though - too little, not appropriate given the clear gravity of the situation.

The silence sounded louder than her voice could possibly have been, anyway.

 

\---

 

Amélie didn’t notice when one voice stopped. When there are a thousand, would anyone notice the lack of one? Of course not - not even one she appreciated as much as Emily’s.

Nor did she take note when that one was joined by a second, Lena’s voice falling silent as well - there were so many others, such a large chorus of pity, that the absence of two from the choir hardly mattered.

 

\---

 

“W-” Lena’s voice cracked, leading her to cough and start again. “What do we do now, love?”

The first words. Neither of them had spoken since falling silent, their tired mouths appreciating the opportunity to rest and their confused minds taking the chance to try to sort through what was happening.

Try, and not particularly succeed.

They were good first words, though. They summed up what Emily’d spent the whole time thinking about.

It had been three days. Three days since Lena had stopped talking. Three days of silence, sunrises and sets visible only through the glow at the edges of the thick black curtains hung over the windows.

Three days of silence, three days of thought, and she couldn’t say she’d discovered an answer yet.

Obviously, they had to flee. They had to get out, to run, to escape - they’d been taken captive here, and now they had an opportunity, one chance, to leave.

Leave, and go back to the town, where surely their tiny shack behind the butcher’s shop would have been given to some other person by now, or perhaps even torn down entirely. They’d been gone for quite some time, after all.

Flee, out into or through the woods, where there were all manner of beasts which might prey upon them, tracking them down with vicious intent. Just as Amélie had done.

Escape, and find their way back to…

...what?

“I don’t know,” Emily whispered. “I- I don’t know, I-”

Lena nodded, as if it hadn’t already been clear from the look on her face or in her eyes - she didn’t know the way forward either.

Their legs stayed still on the stone floor, and the silence returned again, broken only by the soft cries of the crumpled figure between them.

 

\---

 

The voices began to abate.

They’d been inspired in the first place by Lena’s and Emily’s, and then supported by the same, and lacking that now they started to fade.

First went the teachers, their voices no longer capable of lecturing; then the friends, falling into obscurity in the back of her mind, and then the siblings succumbing to silence, and then her parents.

Last was Gérard, and as much as she hated the words he’d spoken and the way he’d said them, she’d desperately loved hearing his voice again.

She cried out particularly roughly when he was relegated to silence again - when the clarity of mind returned for her to recall what she’d done to him, and that she would never hear his voice again in pity or in joy, in anger or in sorrow.

Even a stormy day is better than none at all.

Then she was alone, in silence, with only her own pity to sustain her, and it was so little when held up against the orchestra of the same that had given way.

Lying on the floor, in silence.

Not alone.

She heard the heartbeats through the silence.

Heartbeats.  _ Silence. _

How?

 

\---

 

“Why are you not speaking?”

Lena’s eyes widened at the voice, quiet and crinkling like tin too thin to be useful - unmistakably her voice, though, Amélie’s voice, questioning them.

“You must-” her voice caught in her throat, her head still down, her form still slumped entirely on the stones as both Lena and Emily stared at her in terror. “You  _ must speak. _ You must pity me.  _ Pity me.” _

Silence.

“Pity me!” The command came again, rising in desperation as Amélie pushed herself upright to glare at the two of them. “You must! You cannot stop - you are not permitted, you-”

“S’not up t’you anymore.”

Emily’s words weren’t loud, they were quite soft in fact, but they made something happen on Amélie’s face - an expression crossed it, one Lena recognized as the expression of one who was stabbed in the back and the blade twisted harshly, an expression of pain and shock before the Countess spun to look in the other direction.

Emily still sat there, in the exact same place, shaking her head slowly - still looked much the same as she always had, but her eyes - there was none of the familiar fog in them, in Emily’s eyes, and it terrified Amélie as much as anything she’d ever seen. The  _ clarity _ there.

“Not up to you anymore,” Emily repeated.

“W-what are you-” Amélie’s voice shook, and Lena thought it was with anger at first - with rage and fury, but no. She did recognize the tone, but it wasn’t ire.

It was fear.

“Do not say this,” Amélie hissed softly, “you must not - you must  _ pity _ me, you  _ must!” _

“No!” Emily pushed herself upright with a shout. “No, we’re not yours to order around anymore, we’re not-”

“You  _ are _ mine,” Amélie screeched, but it sounded less like a command, less like a threat or a statement, and more like a desperate plea.

“Shut up! No, we’re not, and we’re-” Emily swallowed heavily, a briefly pained expression crossing her face, heart hammering in her chest as she forced her terrified feet to move - her feet which still had some desire to listen to what they’d been told, and even  _ more _ desire to run  _ away _ , but she forced them to do the opposite.

To step  _ toward _ the crumpled Countess on the floor.

Toward her and past, and Emily caught up Lena’s hand and whirled around to lock eyes with Amélie again. “We’re not yours to order around anymore,” she whispered, “and we’re leaving.”

Two sets of feet began to move, unsteadily and uncertainly, even as Amélie began to shriek.

“No! No, you must not - you must  _ stay, _ you must- must pity me, you-” her voice cracked, shook, she was weak and powerless and could not stand, she could not hold her own against the Witch and could not even stop these two humans from leaving, but she tried still.

She tried, and she failed, because she was a failure.

She screamed threats after them, demands and commands as they headed toward the door - the faster they stepped, the louder she shouted, and the less they seemed to care. Her arms stretched out, grasping desperately, but her knees were still pinned to the floor.

She could not move from that place, she could not chase them.

She was a failure. She was worthless. She was weak.

She would have been better off dying, and leaving Gérard to live - or even the horse, or her foxes or her grouse or any one of the deer throughout the years.

Anything would have been better than herself.

As the door slammed behind the other two, Amélie collapsed into shrieked sobs again, loud piercing cries which echoed through the Château and shook the windows in their frames, but there was nothing she could do.

She was the worst thing she could think of.

Helpless.

 

\---

 

Lena and Emily fled the Château hand-in-hand, their grips tightening as their throats did the same when Amélie’s voice rose and sharpened, commands turning to threats - and even moreso when she started to scream and cry again as the slamming of the door echoed behind them.

They rushed through familiar hallways, feet carrying them along swiftly as they tried to outrun the cries and sobs - and failed, of course - but door after door closed behind them until they were out, and sun shone on their faces.

It gave them pause, the sunrise in their eyes, bright and warm and harsh. It hurt, and they pulled into one another instinctively as lovers and partners so often do when shocks or pains occur to them, arms wrapping around each other as they leaned back against the wall and breathed heavily.

They could each feel their own heartbeat racing - and beyond that, they could feel  _ each other’s _ hearts through their close embrace, that immediate and strong indicator of fear and adrenaline.

They stayed there for a while, occasional shrieks or cries softly emanating from the closed-up old building that they leaned against, and at first they tightened their embrace instinctively with every one, but in time that urge faded.

Their hearts calmed, their breaths shallowed, their immediate terror abated even as the screams from inside did the same, and the two of them - Emily and Lena, still hand in hand - took a pace forward and looked out at the world.

Green leaves greeted them, spring’s first buds clear throughout the garden; it was not yet too unruly so it couldn’t have been left untended for  _ too _ long, but the difference was still clear.

There was no snow on the ground.

“A bloody- whole  _ season,” _ Lena whispered, shaking her head. “That’s how long we’ve been in there?”

Emily slowly nodded her head, mouth dry at the thought and anger rising in her chest as well. “Looks that way, love. At  _ least. _ Maybe more, could even be a year and a season, just sitting on the floor and…”

She trailed off as she felt Lena’s hand tense in hers, clenching - just slightly, not enough to hurt or anything like that, but a clear indicator of anger still.

“God, can’t believe- she’d  _ do _ something like that, that Witch, that-” Lena’s voice came out harsh, hissed between her teeth, her other hand clenching into a fist.

The hot ball of anger in Emily’s chest condensed into a cold one, cold and hard as she clenched her jaw at the thought of it, Mercy’s punishment - and of so much else, as well. The thought of how they’d been taken away, turned into servants in this household, fed upon, had their will stripped from them.

Years, it had been - years that they’d been in this house with Amélie as their Mistress dictating their every action, years since they’d been to the town they called home for more than the minimal length of a shopping trip. Years that they’d been in that hazy limbo between houseguest and prisoner, not being forced to stay only because they’d never had the presence of mind to try to leave, and it had seemed so wonderful at the time, but dreams always do.

It’s only upon waking that one might realize that one’s dreams have been nightmares all along.

Her teeth ground against each other as she turned back, whirled around to look at the house - at the stones and the glass, the shingles, every accursed piece of it, as she thought of all that had been done to them.

Taken away - away from their home. Turned into servants for a stranger - bent to her will and whim. Fed upon - their blood drained at a moment’s notice, their bodies used however was wished. Their will stripped from them - no choice left, no freedom permitted, living only on another’s whim.

Taken away from their home. Their  _ home. _

Their tiny, leaky, cold shack behind the butcher’s shop which always stank of old blood and meat, and filled with flies in the hot days of summer which would get in her eyes and her nose and make breathing difficult.

Their home.

Turned into servants for a stranger, who put them up in  _ her _ home instead, with warm fires in the hearth and plush runners on the stone floors, made to bear food and wine - as Lena had done even beforehand. Made to patch the shingles, but at least this home  _ had _ shingles rather than molding thatch - made to repair the panes of glass, but at least  _ this _ home had glass to begin with.

This home.  _ Their _ home.

Fed upon, their blood drained - but their bodies healed quickly and kept whole as opposed to any soldier or smith or miller who so frequently bore thick scars and missing limbs, giving up far more than a little bit of blood, or even the seamstresses and bakers whose hands and arms always bore the scars of burns and needles, the long days of their crafts taking their toll while she and Lena stayed young and whole. There was perhaps something to be said for the  _ other _ uses her and Lena had fulfilled, but Emily would have been a fool to think that no person in the town had their body used as hers had been, choice or no.

Their will, stripped from them, and replaced with bliss - no freedom, just as the world, where so many could pass a law to mandate this or that, where any person with thick muscle and a large blade could force one to do whatever they wished.

Her hand tightened on Lena’s, and she thought she could tell - through whatever link lovers shared - that she was thinking something similar, that through the same path of thought or another she’d ended up at the same idea, and a moment later it was confirmed.

“I-I don’t know that I want to stay,” Lena whispered, sounding as afraid as Emily felt, “but I  _ know _ that I don’t want to go  _ back. _ I- I know…”

Emily squeezed at her hand, wiping at one cheek with the other as her heart clenched and trembled in her chest. She was angry at what had been done - to her, to Lena, to  _ Amélie _ \- and she was afraid, and she was hurt, and she felt a familiar twinge of pain in her heart.

“Me too, love,” Emily whispered. “I don’t want to leave either.”

A soft smile flickered on her lips as Lena’s hand squeezed at hers, and she looked over to meet her eyes - wide, glistening, but with a slight smile beneath them as well.

It seemed to her to be the opposite of what she could recall - no longer a compulsion telling her to stay and a soft whisper in the back of her mind saying she should flee, but now, rather, a strong urge to run tempered only by a soft desire not to.

“Let’s-” Lena glanced over her shoulder, to the far side of one of the small courtyards, “let’s spend the night in the stable, yeah? Give us a chance to… I dunno.”

“Think about it all,” Emily suggested softly, and Lena nodded in agreement.

Hand-in-hand, they went off - and the horses were gone, fled at some point during the months they’d been inside, and it felt so final to look in the empty space. It felt so very ultimate, and was a reminder that if they left, they would truly be leaving Amélie alone - until, perhaps, the Witch chose to return.

Emily stared into the stable which had once held her gelding, her Clydesdale, the door now shattered by her horse’s powerful hooves and every scrap of food devoured. She could only hope it had escaped well, and survived.

“She was… so happy when…”

Emily looked over at the soft words, and saw Lena tearing up, reaching out toward a saddle and tack hanging on the wall - Amélie’s, dark leather embroidered with gold thread.

She remembered placing the order, the way the leatherman had laughed at the request and told her to leave the shop, until she’d set a pouch of gold on the table and said it would be paid for in advance. Only then had he taken her seriously - and still, when he’d finished the piece, he’d refused to hand it over until he was paid more.

More than double than what had been agreed upon, and it could have been afforded but she took exception at the principle. Lena had agreed, and come with her to argue with him - to shout in fury and demand he give them what they’d paid for, but he’d refused them both and forced them from the store with a dangerous gleam in his eye and a hammer in hand.

Amélie had been furious when she’d heard about it. Not shouting, not  _ openly _ angry, but there had been a sharp look in her eye and a flat expression on her face and she’d left the house promptly without a further word.

A week later, on the next trip, the leatherman’s son had taken over the shop.

His father had disappeared, after all.

Emily saw movement - her own hand, reaching out to join Lena’s, stretching toward the saddle and tack and the empty stable stall behind it, bereft of a horse. Reaching out to touch it, but holding short of actually doing so.

She could still recall the look on Amélie’s face when she’d returned with that horse, the gorgeous black Frezian with its long mane and coal-black shiny coat - that expression of delight and love she’d had, and she’d spent the night in the stable cooing softly to the slightly-spooked beast, and she’d patted at its neck and its mane and fed it bits of carrot and apple by hand, and she’d always brushed it and cleaned its hooves herself.

Emily remembered that. She remembered all of it, the years they’d been here, though it was hazy - like a dream upon wakening, and not every moment of it was perfect but she could say the same for her life.

Neither of them touched the saddle. In unison, they seemed to silently decide to forego that, and went to sit on a wooden bench off to the side - they held hands and leaned against each other, and they spoke with soft concern for hours.

They asked how the other was, whether there were any injuries - they vented anger over the Witch, and they expressed their hope for the horses, and they spoke of many things.

Many things, but not about what would come next.

It wasn’t until the sun was setting that they began to talk about her. Not for hours until the sun’s light was leaving that they finally began to discuss Amélie.

They kept talking until the sun began to rise again.

It had been a long time since their schedules had resembled anything normal, but eventually even they started to tire, and words were interspersed more and more with yawns, and they curled up on a pile of saddle blankets and went to sleep with no decision yet made.

There was much more talking to be done first.

 

\---

 

 

 

**END OF ACT TWO: THE SUDDEN COLLISION / THE TRAP IS SET**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh, there we go - Act Two, complete, with again an added moniker at the end; what do you think, my dears? Grim, I promised - have I delivered?
> 
> A glimmer of hope, though, perhaps. After all, Lena and Emily haven't quite fled yet - but is it the lingering threads of compulsion that stays their flight, or something else? Only time might tell.
> 
> It's been quite a journey, writing this: it's taken me months of brainstorming, writing, refining, polishing, and all interspersed with the interruptions of life, of course. I actually first began to write this back in, hmm, January or so, but I then ran up against a few issues which prevented me from writing anything at all for several months. I'm only now starting to get back into it, starting to be able to tap into that well again. Not quite certain I'd call this exactly a triumphant return to form, but I _would_ at least say that - all else regardless - this is most certainly _something_.
> 
> Now, what Amélie does next - indeed, whether there even _is_ much in terms of "next" for her, is a question only another day can answer. That day being tomorrow, of course.
> 
> Halloween is the night of ghosts, after all - when the spectres and ghouls are at their strongest, and walk the Earth with least fear.
> 
> I'll see you again then, my dears.
> 
> J.


	10. A3S1: The Past's Presence and Pressure

**ACT THREE: THE DYING BREATH**

 

 

 

 

**Act Three, Scene One: The Past's Presence and Pressure**

 

\---

 

Five of them there were, set out from the village.

The windows of the Old Castle had been lighted for some time, and worries had spread, but then a man had returned half-dead through the snow with a bullet and claw-gashes and a tale - a tale of a monster that looked like a woman but with the teeth of an animal and the eyes of a demon, the gaze of a killer, fast and strong and ruthless.

Many had dismissed him as crazy, driven mad by the cold and his injuries - and all the moreso when he'd died the next morn. The insanity of near-death, they'd said.

Many had dismissed him, but not some, and when others returned from hunting trips with news of ghastly shrieking coming from the building - unearthly cries of which no human could possibly be capable - more and more people began to believe.

To believe, and to fear.

The depths of winter had prevented travel that far as the forest's wolves and other beasts were emboldened by snow and hunger, but now that spring had passed into the beginnings of summer and the wolves were full-stomached and travelling less with their new brood, the days longer and warmer and permitting easier travel, a small party had been sent from the village to investigate.

Five of them. Heinrich, Calum, Beran, Andrey, and in the back, elderly Eiric.

There had been a road leading there once, but it was in disuse now, grown through with weed and bramble which slowed the party's progress but did not halt it. Heinrich led the way but it was Eiric who determined the path. They kept their eyes out for anything lurking in the woods, but there was little to be seen in the broad daylight.

Beasts tended to shirk the light of day, after all.

The Castle stood, still, somehow after all of these years - no person in the village could recall it ever being inhabited, and only tales remained of the Count who had once lived there.

It didn’t  _ look _ abandoned.

Heinrich, the leader of the group, raised a hand, signaling to the others to stop. Their fingers gripped tightly at the stocks of their rifles as their eyes studied the shingles, the windows, the gardens. Every shingle was straight, every pane of glass undamaged and covered behind with fabric curtains, the ivy and mosses that clung to the stones did so only in places where it seemed artfully appropriate.

The wood of the front door was not cracked or weathered from time, and the thick iron knocker was free from any rust.

There was no screaming.

No unearthly shrieks or banshee wails as had been so frequently reported - Heinrich turned back to Calum toward the back of the group, looking intensely nervous. Calum had been amongst the few hunters and trappers in the winter to wander out this far, and he’d sworn by every birthright that the windows had been lighted and the night filled with haunting noises.

“I know what I heard,” he protested swiftly, his normally ruddy face pale with fright as his eyes darted, mouse-like, around the grounds and the building. “I know what I heard and I know what I saw! There’s nought right with this place - the Devil’s here, I tells ya, he walks these grounds. The Devil!”

Heinrich, the leader and second-eldest of the group, turned away from him with a scowl - a man of devout belief, nothing could shake his faith in his God, and he believed that God would see him through any trial and see him clear of any Devil’s clutching grasp.

Even if he  _ did _ grip one hand somewhat desperately at the wooden crucifix at his side when he swung the iron knocker against the door.

It echoed as if through a building quite empty, and no other noise was apparent - no chattering, no movements, and every man of the five felt intensely unwell as they waited, waited and watched and simply stood.

A slow tension built in them, making itself clear first as silence - silence and then shifting, from foot to foot, as if anticipating the need to leap or flee; an anxiousness which made itself clear through white-knuckled grips on rifles with their flints cocked back and ready to strike at the plates, a fear which was manifest in every swift-thumping heart of the five.

The door opened.

A woman stood there, in fine dress - a buttoned up shirt with no collar to speak of, a vest and coat and trousers, her red hair pulled up high into a bun that sat atop her head, eyes squinting slightly in the sunlight overtop of her freckled cheeks.

“Hello, gentlemen,” she tipped her head in a soft nod, and not one amongst them was sure whether they should be mollified or all the more worried for this woman’s non-threatening appearance.

When one expects a Devil, and one already has an image in mind, it can be quite disorienting to be met with something so different.

“Is there something with which I can be of aid?” She looked to them each in turn with what they would all have described as an unnerving calmness - a wholehearted confidence that they found unsettling: a single woman confronted with five armed men should have had some hints of concern on her face. Perhaps an inkling of worry.

Not so, however.

Heinrich cleared his throat after a moment’s silence, after the woman stayed in the doorway and did not usher them inside. “We’ve come to determine what’s happening here. There have been… stories. Do you live here?”

Squatters were not unheard of, not nearly, although they would have admitted to some slight respect for one with such grand aspirations as to stake a claim to a domicile that fine.

The redheaded woman laughed, however, and shook her head. “Stories? Of what sort? Yes, I live here - though it is not, of course, mine to call my own.”

“Who calls this  _ their  _ home, then?” Heinrich demanded, still staunch and resolute - the whole morning’s ride spent instilling in himself the strength needed to duel with a Devil, and momentum not so easily dispersing.

“Why,” the redhead smiled softly, “that would be my Mistress, sir. She is unwell at the moment, though, and I fear cannot come to the door - but I hope you find the answer to whatever questions you seek. Now, I must bid you  _ adieu _ and wish you a good day, there is much to be-”

Time fades memories, and so one might be forgiven forgetting something for a few short moments - recognition is so dependant on context, and so one might be forgiven not recognizing a fairly familiar object in such an unexpected and unfamiliar environment. Age is no friend to recollection, nor eyesight, and so one might be forgiven seeing unclearly or remembering poorly when ones years number many.

One of the five moved from the back, pushing forward - hand on shoulder, moving other younger men aside until he stood at the forefront. Eiric, the oldest of the party, called out as he came; his eyes were soft with age and ale, but he remained the best tracker in the village, his experience bearing out his fading eyesight and physical vitality.

“Is that- who, who is this who speaks?” His voice creaked with age, some five decades and more behind him, his throat steeped in pipe-smoke and baudy shouts throughout night-times spent in taverns. “Who are you - tell me your name, or be damned!”

There was a rustle from the other four, some agreeing and some disagreeing to varying extents with either Eiric’s general inquiry or the forcefulness with which he made it; Beran frowned slightly, thinking it not so gentlemanly to be so strong with a woman so swiftly, whereas most of the others had curiosity and worry outweighing consideration in their minds.

Her eyes fixed on him as he approached, until he stood at Heinrich’s elbow - but not a pace further forward than that - and he studied her in turn.

“It…” his lips twisted into a deep frown. “Is that you? Could it be - could you be that whore daughter of mine, Emily?”

Again, there was a small chorus of grunts and grumbles; only two of the others had ever met Eiric’s daughter, and Heinrich thought this newcomer was not nearly old enough to be her - and Calum still disagreed with Eiric’s harsh wording, but not strongly enough to say or do anything about it. He gave no thought to Eiric’s once-daughter.

Immediately, the redhead laughed - a bright laugh, and she shook her head again. “Daughter? Sir - I mean no offence, but unless you are truly virile, I think you would find me some years too young for that. Five at least, I would think.”

“It’s been years, Eiric, and even when Emily went  _ missing _ she looked older than that,” Heinrich muttered.

“And how would you know?” Eiric demanded, whirling and laying an accusatory hand on Heinrich’s shoulder.

“Lay off it, Eiric,” Calum grunted, some courage gathered - but still not enough to raise his eyes from the ground.

“I’d recognize her! Anywhere, she- they say things are happening at this household, and maybe it’s her!” Eiric turned to the others, thrusting a shaky finger back toward the redhead who stood in the doorway, barring the way still.

“All her-” he spluttered, red in the face, “-all her  _ sapphic consorting, _ and maybe she’s become a witch now! And this is their coven, and they’re planning some horrid ritual, and have any of you thought of that? You know it could be true - you know this is how it goes!”

Calum’s eyes stayed on the ground, and one of the others named Beran joined him; Heinrich’s hand went to the Bible at his belt as his eyes flicked to the redhead again, suspiciously. She was too young to be Eiric’s daughter Emily, but Emily  _ had _ been known to consort with women, and that was common amongst the Witches.

Everyone knew how Witches worked, after all.

Again, though, she laughed with a shake of her head. “Daughter, and now Witch? Sir, I would say you flatter me, but I would not wish to lie so blatantly - here,” she smiled softly, stepping back from the door and gesturing in, “come in and see for yourselves, then.”

They filed in, one by one, as she held the door.

Not one of them noticed the two small lumps like thick scar tissue, tucked up against her hairline - and even if they had, they likely would have thought nothing of it.

“Come and see that there are no rituals and no Witches,” she continued to say, “only myself, the one other serving-maid, and our Mistress. She is, as I said, unable to leave the dining hall at the moment, but…”

The sound of the door closing echoed softly through the halls, but the deadbolt was perfectly silent as it slid into place and locked the door - Emily had, after all, been quite cautious with its maintenance along with the rest of the Château.

She knew it was well-oiled.

“I think,” she murmured, turning to lead the five of them through the halls, “it might be best if I take you there to see her yourselves. That might be the swiftest way to solve this whole messy situation…”

They followed the apparent servant - some doubts amongst them still, but those allaying more and more the further they stepped. Walking past an alcove which had a crackling fire in the hearth had Calum lowering his rifle to point at the ground, and every look at dusted busts and cobweb-free corners had Heinrich relaxing his grip on Bible and crucifix.

Everyone knew, after all, that Witches were horrid things, disgusting to behold and revolting in every fashion.

No monster could hold as presentable a home as that one. As attractive an appearance.

By the end of the first hallway, only Eiric held any doubt anymore, still spluttering and ranting about his old daughter and Witches in the hills - and the others began more and more to groan and grit their teeth in frustration at him.

The redhead never responded to anything he said.

The dining hall was quite self-evident, the long table surrounded by chairs and the two large hearths which would serve to heat it - both of them stacked to full and burning brightly, providing light where none could enter through the thick fabric hung over the windows.

There were two figures in the room, one of which stood at the small group’s approach - garbed in similar clothing to the redhead but with shorter hair, a spiky mess of brown - and her mouth opened, but at a gesture from the other, she remained silent.

Something unsettling about the scene had the five on edge again, and hands met weapons once more as their footfalls slowed. The other figure remained on the ground, covered entirely in a thick blanket - a person facing away, kneeling or sitting on the ground, it seemed.

“Ah,  _ visitors…” _

The voice didn’t sound like a Witch’s voice - it wasn’t scratchy or horrid, it was quite pleasant; warm and full. Still, the fact that the figure remained motionless was unnerving at best, and the five only had more questions and fears mounting within their minds.

“My Mistress,” the redheaded serving-maid stated, stepping over to the floor-bound figure’s side and bowing briefly. “These men have stopped by from the village, for some concern of theirs, tales of horrors in the hills - I thought it prudent to bring them in to see you. I know how you’ve been longing for any visitors these past months, and might want to bring an end to their worries.”

“Months?” Heinrich’s concern - and fear - got the better over him, and he recoiled a pace with a hand quickly clamping over his mouth and nose. “What’s wrong with her? It’s not the plague, is it?”

The figure laughed, though, a clearly dismissive laugh, and waved a hand to gesture them forward. Thoughtlessly, Heinrich took a step at the hand’s urge, and so did all of the others.

“No, nothing like that,” that same voice came again, the voice of the Château’s Mistress, “I am simply weakened. I have been unable to eat, you see, and now I am… ever so  _ hungry.” _

If any one of the five heard anything menacing in the word, you would not have known it for how their footsteps carried them forward - smoothly and steadily, gliding, all five sets of eyes fixated on the blanketed figure as the hand drew them forward once more.

“Come, come here, come close,” she urged in a soft voice, “I have not the strength to keep calling out so loudly - come closer, very close, so that we might speak. I understand you are very worried, very afraid…”

She could hear it in their heartbeats, practically maddening; every heartbeat and every step, she could hear them approaching and she knew exactly where they were, all five of them.

The only reason they yet drew breath was because she could not stand.

Heinrich was the first to round her shoulder, to crouch down - one of the others, Andrey, was near his elbow and crouched as well. Calum and Beran stood behind them, and Eiric in the back, his spluttering protests trailed off to silence by now.

Not that any of them noticed.

Slowly, the figure’s hands rose, taking hold of the blanket which was draped over its head - raising it, and gradually revealing what hid underneath, and for just a moment, Heinrich looked upon the face of a Devil.

Gaunt, sunken eyes that glittered with dark and crazed madness, set above a sharp grin that was too wide for the face it sat upon - and the teeth within it, far far too sharp, and all looking far too delighted.

“My thanks,” she whispered, all five of them frozen wide-eyed in terror; she heard their hearts skip beats and hammer and shift paces abruptly like a horse kicked sharply in the ribs, but there would be no opportunity for any of them to act.

They had been so kind, to come so close.

The first one, she pinned down to the ground with one hand - the other hand reached out to pull in one of the ones standing behind, even as her fangs caught the nearest who grasped at something on his belt, but they were like pigs trying to flee a hound and there was no hope for their escape.

The one she held in hand, she snapped the neck of with a deft sweep of the hand, confident that the blood would be warm enough to drink for another few moments more - one trying to push himself backward and away was easily snared and pulled in, the young one, and she dropped the lifeless body of the leader away from her mouth and replaced it with him instead.

The last time she’d fed - she couldn’t recall it, how long it had been, but it had been torturous sitting here hearing the heartbeats of the other two and unable to feed upon them.

Not to mention everything  _ else _ about it which had been torture.

Two were dead, one rapidly dying in her jaws, one held in hand - only one remained, the oldest and frailest of the five, but he’d also been the furthest back. He recoiled out of reach, and Amélie snarled as she lashed out at him but missed, hitting the edge of her leash abruptly as her knees almost left the floor but she was unable to force them to do so.

He raised his rifle, and for a moment she thought he might even be able to get a shot off - his hands shook and he was clearly slow, and aiming poorly as well - the bullet would have hit her in the side and she likely would have survived even if she’d been a pitiful  _ human _ , but it was not to be.

A shape flew from her right side, dark fabric and bright red hair, Emily tackling the man back to the stones - they struggled for a moment, Amélie snarling sharply in distaste and anger, and then there  _ was _ a gunshot.

Not even for an instant was Amélie unsure of which one had perished, so well did she know Emily’s heartbeat - it fluttered, yes, but it never flagged and failed as the old man’s did, and a moment later Emily stood shakily and stared down at the floor.

He didn’t gasp, didn’t flail or stare or do any of the things she’d seen animals do, he just laid there. Cold, calm, eyes wide, no movement or anything, already dead by the time she stood and staring not at her but at the ceiling far above and away.

Her frantic heart refused to beat more normally, but after a moment’s staring she gathered her resolve and spit on her former father’s corpse.

“That one’s not even worth drinking,” she whispered, her throat too tight to manage more - too clenched to manage any of the angry shouts and screams she’d wanted to level at him, ever since seeing him in the group at the door. Ever since he’d thrown her out into the cold streets without a scrap of clothing on her back or a penny to her name.

She’d suppressed them then since his arrival, and she was unable now. Even if she had, it would have done nothing.

He was quite dead, after all.

Lena came over, wrapping an arm around her, and Emily fell into her embrace - Amélie watched them hold each other tightly as she slowly drained one of the remaining few, hand clamped over his mouth to stop him making too much noise.

She still didn’t know why they were still there.

 

\---

 

Hours later, as the sun was setting, Amélie watched them scrub up the leftover blood from the floors.

As much as she wanted to drink it.

She did, desperately - it had taken all she had to keep from licking at the stones like a hound chasing down tossed-away scraps of its Master’s meal, but she’d managed it.

Barely.

Now they were gone, the five corpses, and soon all of the blood would be as well, and it was easier to think without it. With the scent of harsh acerbic extracts for stone-cleaning, washing away the smell of blood and the hunger it brought.

It was only the two of them, then, which hungered her, but that was a hunger she could no longer sate.

Perhaps, though, she might be able to manage some satiation for her curiosity.

“Why do you do this?”

Her query came quickly, but not sharply. Not only were they no longer under her easy control, they seemed to have been granted some resistance to the controls she had even over those she’d never laid fang upon - those five for instance, who she’d drawn forward with waves of the hand and soft words even to their deaths, but she could no longer do as much for Emily and Lena.

Yet, they remained.

There was no response at first, as they mopped up the last of the blood and scrubbed at the stones with a thin white solution from a small glass phial which smelled of orange and vinegar - but once they were done with that, they set their things off to the side rather than taking them away entirely, and they came to sit with her.

They often did, these days, leaning up against her or touching her, and she did dearly want the warmth of their contact but it could come to nothing. It was maddening to be faced with it, knowing she could not feed; knowing she could not be complete with them the way she wished, the way she needed.

For a long time, they remained silent, their hands roaming over her shoulder and arms, running down to interlace fingers with hers as they rested foreheads on her shoulders.

She could not move, held in place by the Witch’s lasting word, but they had no such restriction, not anymore. They could stand and move freely, no command keeping them pinned in place.

Yet, they  _ remained. _

“I don’t understand,” she stressed, her words coming out far closer to desperation than she might’ve wished - but there seemed little point holding back from it anymore. They were clearly stronger than her, capable of shaking off her compulsions; she was useless, worthless, it was obvious. There was no point pretending otherwise.

They both pulled in tighter at her words, wrapping themselves around her and around each other until it was as warm as any steamed bath had ever been, as comfortable as any silken bed, as satisfying as any meal, and if she could’ve had even a small mouthful of blood she might’ve called it perfect.

Lacking that, though, it was just one more aspect of the Witch’s ever-present torture. A dream nearly perfect, but spoiled by one ultimate thing, one lynchpin which led the whole paradise to collapse - a particularly fell stroke on the Witch’s part, that.

The Witch, who she loved, who she hated - the Witch who had left her here. Unlike Lena and Emily, who hadn’t. They’d had the opportunity to, they’d fled the room and the house at first despite her screams to the contrary and her threats, and they’d been gone for some time she couldn’t guess at the length of.

They’d left.

Yet, they remained.

Wordlessly, at first. They were simply  _ around, _ at first, as they had been before but not following her orders. They used the house, and they cared nothing for her shouts, and they came and took away their glass of water or whatever it was, and they hardly interacted with her.

At first.

Then they’d come to sit beside her at times, often still wordlessly - and she was secretly glad for it, to whatever extent she could be. She still told them to pity her, and she thought she saw it in their eyes and heard it in their hearts, but at least they didn’t say anything.

At least she couldn’t hear them  _ saying _ it anymore.

“Why do you do this, why do you remain?”

A pair of long, slow sighs, and it was Lena who spoke after a moment. “Is love really that hard to understand?”

Emily nodded against her shoulder, and Amélie’s first urge was to scoff - to laugh, to dismiss it.

It could not be love, not when it was rooted in such compulsion; it could not be love, when she’d taken from them so indiscriminately; it could not be love, when they were only  _ humans _ and she was just a monster.

It couldn’t be.

Yet, they remained.

 

\---

 

They continued to insist on it. Love. Whenever the question arose through the following days and weeks.

“And if it is only there because I  _ put _ it there? This supposed love of which you speak - it would not be true, then.”

She still stayed in the same spot, unable to move herself or let herself be moved; the Witch had told her to stay, and she could not ignore those words. 

Could not deny her Mistress.

As surely as they could not have denied her, when her words still mattered to them; as surely as they could not have blocked her from implanting into their minds love or dependance or care.

It was ironic, in fact. Had they still been under her sway, they would not have tried to argue - they would simply have accepted her word as truth.

Amélie always had hated irony.

Lena and Emily had pulled over chairs, and spent much of their time sitting in them - speaking, tending to her. They’d offered to bring her clothes, but she’d refused - she was, after all, being punished still - and every bit of care and attention felt disturbingly like the pity she’d ordered them to provide, but then, there was a hidden upside to that.

It might be unpleasant, to be pitied, but at least she could fool herself into thinking they still listened to her.

Lena snorted at her question, shaking her head. “Don’t think it works that way, love - after all, you also told us to stay put on the floor there, and that’s not carried on, has it?”

Amélie’s eyes flicked to the spots where she’d ordered them to remain - where she still  _ did _ order them to remain, from time to time - and they were, of course, noticeably absent of either Lena or Emily.

“It is not the same,” she muttered darkly.

She withdrew then, as little as she was able, curling up into a ball again - and they draped a blanket overtop of her, and left the room to spend some time in front of one of the fireplaces elsewhere, respecting Amélie’s unstated desire for some time alone.

They weren’t under her command anymore, but they still gave her what she wished when they were able.

That was how love worked, after all.

 

\---

 

Emily brought her a blanket, one day, and she’d had enough of it all - she flung it away onto the stone floor with a grunt, leaving herself bare to the air. It wasn’t as if it made any difference to her anyway, the blanket would preserve none of her warmth.

Indeed, she had none to preserve.

Then Emily caught her eye with a look of soft concern and worry, and Amélie laughed, darkly - a sneering, distasteful laugh.

“You say my orders have so swiftly faded,” she grinned, gesturing toward the blanket on the ground, “and perhaps I can not make you stand still anymore, but some control clearly remains. You pity me still - not chanting it as commanded, perhaps, but it lingers within you still.”

Their words still carried its tones sometimes, their motions and actions; yes, they remained, but perhaps only because they’d been ordered to. Some leeway developed now, with them capable of leaving their precise places, but perhaps not control  _ removed _ but only somewhat subverted.

It would have made sense to her, would have explained why they stayed and carried out all those little mocking actions of care.

“How else would you explain this, the blankets and the concern, the  _ pity _ ; my commands still carrying weight within your mind,  _ chérie.” _ The Countess crossed her arms smugly.

Emily’s head just shook softly, her eyes glistening with tears that threatened to fall - tears of pity, Amélie was certain at first.

“No,” Emily whispered, “no, that’s not it at all. There’s-” she swallowed back a noise, shaking her head again. “There’s a difference between pity and  _ care, _ love.”

The Countess had nothing to say to that, nothing more than an incredulous, intensely disbelieving stare.

The tears did start to spill, then, and Emily lingered for a moment - lingered and stared, and Amélie thought she knew the expression. It was familiar to her, in a way: horror. The only unnerving thing was that she was quite sure that she was  _ not _ the source of Emily’s horror.

Then Emily left, quickly, holding back a sob with a fist pressed to her lips, and Amélie could only wonder.

In the coming days, they didn’t check up on her as much, didn’t ask how she was doing, didn’t tell her to let them know if there was anything they could do to make things better for her. Didn't do the things which felt pitiful.

Didn’t bring her blankets anymore.

After a few weeks, she asked for one.

It wasn’t warm.

It was  _ something, _ though.

 

\---

 

“Even though I stole you away from your homes, from your lives.”

It was not a question, and not directly aligned with any prior statement - Emily and Lena had been eating some soup made out of what ingredients in the larders hadn’t spoiled during their period of inactivity, but the winter’s cold had helped with that and their food stock was in better shape than they’d feared.

Neither of them wished to drink from that glass ever again, if they could help it.

Amélie’s statement arose from nowhere, from silence, with her looking away from the other two. Emily had her spoon halfway to her mouth when she looked up to see Lena looking back, spoon in mouth.

Even though the words didn’t pick up  _ directly _ off of any others, it was clear what Amélie meant.

She gulped down her mouthful of soup, and let out a sigh. “Well… yeah. You did, and that wasn’t good, but if we’re honest our home wasn’t that great to begin with. Our lives weren’t  _ exactly _ grand.”

“S’true,” Lena nodded, swallowing a mouthful. “Actually, ‘bout all we had that  _ was _ good was each other.”

“I tried to take this from you as well,” Amélie murmured, softly but surely. “To take you from each other - I relished in it. I smelled her on you, that first night, smelled Emily, and I knew that I was taking you away from her. I always appreciated that. Making them throw away their rings and their vows and follow me into the woods. To their deaths.”

Emily wasn’t sure she’d ever become dry-mouthed halfway through a bowl of soup before, but there was a first time for everything; her heart twisted at the pained look that crossed Lena’s face, and then there was a soft laugh from Amélie.

She could  _ hear  _ their hearts, after all.

“That was what I thought,” she muttered, listening to their heartbeats dance in pain and fear and worry. “So you see, it is not love.”

They returned to silence for a moment - for a few moments, in fact. Long ones. They wanted to say otherwise, to argue, but it was hard enough to even consider speaking and harder still to decide what to say.

Emily finished her soup, setting it and her spoon down off to the side, and sitting for another moment in thought.

She  _ wanted _ to say that wasn’t how love worked - that just because they were afraid of something in the past, or disliked something, didn’t mean they didn’t love her. That she could be angry about how Lena had been taken away from her but still be glad that she was returned now.

She  _ wanted _ to say a lot, but couldn’t quite work out how to phrase it, because so much of it felt like what she’d said before.

It turned out that it was difficult to convince someone of love, if they were determined to disbelieve you.

Instead, Emily’s mind ran on a different track, hoping to find some way around the blockage - a tree had fallen across the path, but there were other ways to be found, surely.

Emily took a breath, glancing up to meet Lena’s eyes - Lena who shrugged, looking uncertain, and Emily felt much the same but she felt like she had to say something.

At the very least, to try to understand.

“Why do you think you always enjoyed that so much?”

Amélie turned to look at them, at her, for the first time during the whole conversation - her head flashed around, a snarl on her lips, but only for an instant. Only a bare moment before she turned away again, staring toward a fireplace which could bring her no warmth.

They never had been able to. Not since she’d lost Gérard.

Not since he’d been  _ taken _ from her.

...it was only fair that she would wish the whole world to share in her suffering, was it not?

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she replied glumly a minute later, and Emily and Lena finished their food and came to sit next to her in total silence.

Far warmer than the fireplace.

 

\---

 

“You deserve better than how that Witch, Mercy, treats you.”

Amélie snarled dangerously, baring her teeth and glaring at Lena who’d spoken, but it was an empty gesture. She could not feed - and could perhaps have dashed the girl upon the stones for her audacity, but that would have been such a waste.

Lena knew as much, as well, but her heart still jumped at the shock and the sight.

“You  _ do,” _ she insisted. “She’s horrid to you, and-”

“You do not understand,” the Countess growled. “She loves me. Anyone would go to any length to aid a loved one, would they not? I was foolish at first, hungry and easily wounded, and I required teaching. Required correction. If- ha!” Amélie grinned darkly. “If you say you love me, then it is only because of who I became under my Mistress’ careful eye.”

Lena had nothing to say to that, only stared back unblinking with a soft frown.

The silence went on long enough that Amélie thought she had won, most surely - she must have won, otherwise there would have been a retort or a counterpoint. She was so certain of it.

Except for the fact that Lena kept looking at her.

Staring, still, softly frowning - as if in thought, and certainly not as if in defeat. She didn’t look away or drop her eyes, and so of course Amélie could not either.

After a few more moments, Lena slowly swallowed and shook her head. “Then how come… I didn’t much like who you were, when she was around?”

Then, Lena did look away - looked away and even  _ walked  _ away, but it didn’t feel to Amélie at all like a triumph.

She couldn’t come up with a retort.

Alone and cold, lying on the floor - left there, by one who professed to love her.

It should have felt the same as the Witch.

It didn’t.

 

\---

 

They still spent time together and without her, at times - Lena and Emily - and she couldn’t decide what was worse. The moments they were there, with their presence seeming to mock her - unable to feed or control or even  _ decipher -  _ or the moments when they were gone, their words and their touches and their warmth all absent.

Both were terrible, clearly.

Amélie felt like she was back at the beginning again, sourly silently in her solitude, staring at walls or out windows, but there was nothing else to be done about it. She’d tried everything there was to be done, and still had run up against unseen obstacles. Ones she could not have seen, or foreseen.

The silver blade, all over again. Feeding upon Gérard.

Accepting the offer in the first place.

There were so many  _ seeming _ knowns, moments when she’d been so certain about what would happen. She was hallucinating and would die - or, whatever life she was given would be preferable to death. She and Gérard would lay together until each were tired beyond the point of moving, and then would drift off to sleep together. She would leap upon the small group and drain them all to the last.

So many moments of certainty that had turned out to be so incredibly  _ wrong. _

She thought that she’d known so much, but in hindsight it was clear that she was clueless - that she knew nothing, that she was an idiot.

In which case, it was ironic that she was once more ever so certain of something. Once more ready to sign her name irrevocably to something which might bear her out, or might tear her asunder.

She always had hated irony.

A dark sneer formed in her mind, from equal parts of the Witch’s lingering influence and repeated judgement, and Amélie’s own self-deprecation and cruel introspection, and it called her a fool - it taunted her, that she would be wrong again, and again, and again. That every time she thought she was certain of something, it would be incorrect.

It was foolish to think oneself infallible.

She certainly had no wish to be any fool.

 

\---

 

Amélie could still turn, swivel, all of that - she simply wasn’t able to move from that  _ spot _ , but she could reposition in place.

Thankfully.

She lay on her back, Emily’s head on one shoulder and Lena’s on the other, moonlight streaming in upon them. She’d asked them to pull the curtain back so she could see it, the night sky and the stars. She’d wanted to gaze upon them.

It was cloudy.

Of course it was, as well - it had been so long since life had granted her what she’d wanted.

As Lena and Emily finished laying out their blankets on the floor, though, and curled up with her, it was difficult to be too irritated by that - by the lack of stars or moon.

After all, there were far more pressing and distressing  _ lacks _ to be irritated by.

She heard and felt their heartbeats, every pump bringing fresh hot blood which she knew she would never taste again; she could hardly think straight with that knowledge wedged painfully in the forefront of her mind.

“You have not tried to convince me of your love for some time.”

The rain started to drip down outside, the seasons having continued their slow shift - Amélie cared even less for them now that she was permanently inside, permanently fixed, but she knew they still carried on.

She just didn’t want to know how much. Didn’t want to know how long the Witch had been gone, how long it had been since she’d fed.

It was easier if she didn’t know. Or, at least, so she thought.

Lena shrugged, curled up beside her, and chuckled softly. “Well, didn’t seem to be doing much. You didn’t get half mad any time we brought it up, actually, so…”

Emily let out a sigh, and Amélie felt the warmth of it tickling across her chest, and the slighter warmth of the words which followed. “Easier to let sleeping dogs lie, eh? Not sure it’s the sort of thing you can really convince someone of, anyway.”

Amélie’s eyes stayed fixed on the windowpanes, the water running over them in rivulets, softly backlit by the moonlight diffused through a layer of cloud, and she thought of that face Mercy made - that soft, sad, angry desperation, whenever she spoke of love.

She had tried so many times, so many ways, to convince the Witch; and she had doubted, along the way, yes, but who does not doubt the first love of their life?

Or every love of it, even.

“Perhaps you are right,” Amélie whispered, frowning a little at the sky.

The clouds remained throughout the night, but she knew that - in time - they would clear.


	11. A3S2: The Little Things

**Act Three, Scene Two: The Little Things**

 

\---

 

They brought her food.

She was laying on the ground, a blanket draped over - it did nothing for her, but they clearly seemed to want it, so she put up with it and wrapped the thing around herself. Lena and Emily had said they were going off on a grocery trip - not weekly, any more, but still occasional.

Amélie intentionally avoided counting them.

She’d heard noises before the door opened, of course - even pinned, even hungry, all of her senses still worked perfectly well. She’d recognized Lena’s heartbeat, and Emily’s, and their voices as well.

It was the third person, the third heartbeat, that she’d wondered over.

The slur of alcohol in his speech was clear, even before he entered the room, and Lena and Emily’s coquettish laughter made their ploy quite clear.

Seduction was hardly an art in which she alone was versed, after all.

“Just right through here, there we are, gov,” Lena urged, and the door to the dining hall opened.

“Finally!” The man’s voice was smooth but deep, enough so that it seemed gravelly despite its lack of roughness, and the tone of it spoke of heavy-set jowls and a constant frown. “Been- teasing me for long enough!”

“Oh, it’ll be worth it though, won’t it?” Emily’s voice was full of promise, bright and cheerful. “To have us  _ both  _ here, as long as you please? However you wish?”

“Bloody well right I will!”

Amélie didn’t turn to look at him, only listened as the footsteps came closer; she heard fabric being tugged at, Emily clearly faking a noise of pleasure as there was a sloppy sucking sound. A neck, she suspected, with lips latching upon it.

Unpleasantly, from the sounds of things.

The moment he was within arm’s reach, he was on the ground - a yelp, the last noise before he was silenced. Emily’s shirt was half-undone, and Lena’s around the same level; it seemed that he’d been unable to decide upon which one to focus his perversions, and in doing so, had gained very little of what he’d sought before his untimely death.

A shame.

His blood was thick and hot with brandy and fat, the jowls that Amélie had expected to see speaking of meals of foie gras or other rich pâtes, scotch eggs and thick bacon; this was a man who spent his time not working but chewing the fat, metaphorically and quite literally as well.

It had been so long since she’d fed, so very long, and while his heart was slow she easily spurred it on with claws against his back and a thought pressed into his mind, and while his blood was only lukewarm she easily heated it as she felt his pathetic erection press against her leg through his trousers.

She drank him to nothing, not pulling away for even half a second nor pausing to breathe and not spilling a drop - he, in the end, was like one of his gooses must have been. A lifetime of eating and no exercise had left him rich and flavourful, and an easily devoured meal.

He  _ should _ have been the most delicious thing she’d ever tasted, but he wasn’t.

At first, he was a delight; then, he was a meal to sate her hunger. Truth be told, by the end, she was finishing him off largely out of politeness. It would be crass to deny a meal offered, after all - to refuse to partake.

If he could’ve had  _ their _ blood, instead, she would have been far happier.

She pushed the corpse away with a heavy, ragged sigh - away from the other two - and watched Lena and Emily both look at him with a distasteful glare.

“Eurgh,” Lena shuddered, tugging her shirt back into place for a moment and wiping at her wettened neck, “I vote, if there’s a next time, we just knock one out.”

“Agreed,” Emily muttered, rubbing at a red mark which had been sucked into her neck, displeasure clear on her face. It evaporated as she met Amélie’s eyes, though, her neck forgotten as she knelt down.

“We thought you were probably getting hungry,” she explained, taking Amélie’s hands in hers as Lena crouched next to her as well, “and, well, we realized we could probably provide you a meal pretty easily.”

“Prick was always eyeing me back when I lived there, so I figured he’d be an easy one to bring along,” Lena grunted, looking over to the body again.

From the amount of anger that Amélie saw in her eye, though - and the amount of satisfaction as well - she suspected there may have been more than just  _ eyes  _ at play in their particular history.

She very much doubted she was the first one to attempt to have her way with the tavern-maid, and she doubted as well that she may’ve been the first one to succeed.

Something in her recoiled at the comparison, though, and she shot a hateful glance toward the body; the jowls with imperfectly-shaved hairs hiding in their crevices, the waistcoat with a few seams just on the edge of going, the gold- _ plated _ pocketwatch, all of which spoke of a man who aimed above his standing and sought to take what he could never hope to earn.

They were nothing alike.

“It is good we are rid of him, then,” Amélie muttered, before turning away from him and toward the other two with a wide grin.

It was only good form, when one received a gift, to return one - or to give thanks, at least, but how was she to thank for this? It was so unexpected, and hardly the first such instance; dozens of times, they’d done little things to improve her day, perhaps more.

Hundreds, even.

Perhaps…

...it really  _ was _ love.

It made her think of the tile mosaic which Gérard had commissioned for her, of the rifle he’d had shipped in from such a distance with its fine custom engravings - not a matter of money or a matter of showing off, not some demonstration of wealth or power because they were largely  _ her _ wealth and power anyway. Her family was the more affluent, if only by a moderate margin, but the gifts were never about showing off their wealth anyway.

They were about love.

There were others, which held no price - a small flower he’d brought back from a military campaign once, one he’d seen and thought she might like. He’d kept it in his cap for the duration of his journey, and on his return it had been the smallest and most crumpled, saddest thing she’d ever seen.

She’d laughed. She’d loved it.

Amélie looked at the other two, caught in her inability to properly thank them - not just for this, but for any of it. For the horse they’d arranged for, and the saddle so beautifully embroidered; that had been Lena’s idea, and Emily’s design, and it had been gorgeous. The ideas they’d both had for meals, or entertainments - games and ways to pass the time, activities to share.

The sight of Emily, apple stuffed in her mouth, under a silver dome.

Perhaps it really was love.

 

\---

 

She’d mentioned nothing of it, unable to put into words what she wished - but an idea had occurred to her, and she’d resolved to  _ do  _ something instead of speaking.

After all, perhaps it was as they said - that love was in the little things.

A private letter, written with no peering eyes, and with her seal affixed. It would carry no weight, anymore - the family whose signet was borne in the wax long since faded from memory, ever since Amélie Lacroix née Guillard’s heirless death - but it would keep the letter sealed.

Although, she suspected, no more surely than a request would have done.

She was still uncertain, but that was an encouragement to her in her doubt. Lately, it seemed everything of which she was  _ certain _ ended up being untrue.

They took the letter as she asked, of course. They still did nearly everything she asked.

Nearly.

It felt different, though - ineffably yet inarguably different, that they were choosing to do as she asked rather than beinding to her imposed will. She could not order them from the rom anymore, but she could ask them to depart and they would leave.

She wondered how she hadn’t seen it before.

The Witch had always been careful, to demand only certain things - to spend so much time and effort sometimes prodding the Countess into this or that, when she could so simply have ordered it and it would have been so.

At the beginning of it all, she could simply have  _ ordered _ Amélie to go and feed on someone else, rather than stoking her hunger until it was a roaring blaze which could not be suppressed or ignored and only quenched through vast quantities of blood. She could have ordered Amélie to love her, or any one of a thousand other things.

Amélie had been attributing it to a desire to win, on the Witch’s part. The idea that Mercy  _ wished _ her to falter, so that she could be corrected; the thought that the Witch took delight in torment and so deliberately set her up to fall, so that she could revel in it.

Not that Amélie would have complained, had that been the case. As if she would have been  _ able _ to.

Now, though, she was of a different mind on the matter, because it was so simple.

There are certain things which are, quite plainly, less enjoyable when they are demanded or requested.

She’d thought before of a hunt, and how uninteresting and banal it would be to simply tell a beast to lie down, and know that it would. She had no interest in slaughtering pacified livestock, she wanted the thrill of tracking and a chase, and perhaps the Witch did as well.

That thought, before, had occurred to Amélie, and it dovetailed now so neatly with this new realization: that there was a distinct difference between an action undertaken out of choice, and one undertaken out of necessity.

Would Emily and Lena’s little inventions have meant as much, if they were of her own design instead of theirs? If she had instructed them to go an get a large trolley and dome, to set Emily up as a suckling pig, complete with apple in the mouth; would that have been satisfying?

Amélie needed look no further than the way her lip tugged into a snarl at the thought to know that the answer was  _ no. _

 

\---

 

Amélie flicked through a book, searching intently; it was a frustrating pain to translate, from some old form of a specific tongue of German, and she was only certain of about three or four words out of any given ten. Another three or four she could guess well from context, and the remainder?

Well, she could only hope that trial and error would help her fill in the gaps.

The sound of the door, though, had her close the book; Emily and Lena had brought it down to her from the library before leaving on their shopping trip to town, but now that they were returned, there were more pressing concerns.

The forest and the tracks would still be there, after all.

“We’re back!” Lena’s call was unnecessary, but it made Amélie laugh slightly - the foolish notion that she didn’t already know, wouldn’t have heard their new horses coming up the path to the stable or the jangle of tack being removed.

“They finished your little secret project, whatever it is,” Emily announced as well, and the Countess’ grin widened.

It would have been better, of course, to oversee the matter herself; but, as with the bathroom tiles, a surprise was a surprise even if its existence was known.

It was the details which made it delightful.

Her thoughts flickered briefly in that direction, thinking of Lena and Emily’s little plans and her own, silver domes and lit candles around the bath, but then they were entering the room and there was no more time to devote to the thoughts.

“Welcome back,” Amélie held out a hand, “may I see it?”

Emily handed over a wooden box with a nod - it was held closed with nails, but no nail could hope to withstand her strength and the panels of the box were soon rent apart, leaving her with a pair of small leather pouches.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes briefly, impressing upon herself how the hearts of the other two beat - and anticipating the way those beats would shift in a moment - and then handed them the pouches.

Confused, they opened them; pulled back the drawstrings and tipped the pouches’ contents out into their palms.

Bright metal gleamed in the firelight - gold, of course, not silver - as the pendants were revealed. Exactly to her specifications, she was glad to see, exactly matching her drawings and designs, even if the original inspiration hadn’t been her own.

Emily stared down in shock at her hand and the pendant sitting in the palm of it. Glancing up, she saw that Lena was nearly in tears, and the blurriness of Lena’s face made it clear that  _ she _ was too as she looked back down again.

A golden heart, looking almost the same as the two they’d carved out of wood so many years ago; the metal one was smoother, admittedly, and of course of a different material, but otherwise very similar. A different rendition of the same tune.

Lena clutched it to her chest without a further word, quickly pulling off the leather cord around her neck and pulling at the knot to try to undo it - in hopes of adding the new one on to the same cord, but the knot had been tied years ago and tightened every day through little tugs and the slow advance of gravity on the wood’s weight, and there would be no budging it.

When Lena started to  _ bite _ at the knot, Amélie laughed and stretched out a hand. “Here,  _ chérie, _ allow me - it is hardly your _ forté.” _

She easily bit the knot off, her sharp teeth cleaving through the leather like it was soft cheese, and Lena excitedly took the cord back and slipped the new pendant on, tying another knot and tossing the whole thing over her neck again.

“It’s- they’re gorgeous, love, they really are,” Lena whispered, and the Countess found herself grinning at the idea that perhaps she could not manage any more than that - that perhaps a whisper was the most the girl was capable of, and it had happened so many times before but maybe not quite like that.

Maybe.

“I thought you still doubted us and all,” Emily half-laughed as she held out her pendant to have the knot severed as well. “Didn’t think it was real love, or whatever.”

Amélie hummed slightly, shrugging a shoulder. “Who am I to question what two foolish humans believe they feel?” The other two both laughed at her dismissive tone, taking it as the jest it was meant to be as she grinned. “At the least, I thought this might be something you would enjoy - a little gift, for you each. You have given me so many, and… you deserved this, I thought.”

“There isn’t one for you?”

The Countess glanced over to see Lena looking back in confusion, halfway through rifling through the remnants of the box. She shook her head after a moment’s pause, and let out a sigh.  _ “Non, chérie, _ there is not. Not in that box, at least. I…”

For a moment, she paused, eyes cast out toward the curtained windows - it would be light, outside the fabric, but night always came in time. There had been a time when night had meant freedom, had meant she could go and do for herself rather than depending on others.

“I have left orders for it to be held at the shop,” she murmured absentmindedly, eyes still fixed on the curtain for a moment before they flicked back to the other two. “When I can go and retrieve it myself, I will do so.”

“Well, we could pick it up for you,” Lena protested, but Amélie interrupted her with a wave.

“As well I know you could,  _ chérie, _ but no. Some things must be done for oneself.”

She saw a look in each of their eyes, and suspected that she knew what it meant - that Emily might be recalling her apparent father’s visit to the Château, the one that had spelled his death, and that Lena might have been thinking on the thick-jowled man they’d led in to the same - but she couldn’t be certain.

Neither of them protested further, however, and they both went back to admiring their pendants; pulling them out and gazing fondly, pointing out this detail or that one and stroking at them lovingly with soft fingertips.

Amélie smiled softly - the easy mask of a Countess, as she silently debated within herself, wondering whether they should be told. Whether they  _ deserved _ to know, that she’d commissioned no such pendant for herself. Whether they would be hurt to know it, whether that would matter even if they were.

She was a monster, after all, and they were not.

Humans, or nearly so, and what sort of life could they have together? Only one where she would outlive them, quite likely killing them herself, or perhaps even worse simply tiring of their presence over time.

For them to love  _ her _ was one thing, but for her to love them?

She did appreciate their smiles and their joy, their enthusiasm - all of which turned fairly shortly in her direction properly, pendants momentarily abandoned as the two of them closed in with warm lips and soft hands. She  _ did _ appreciate it, truly.

At the same time, though, there was a host of doubtful and guilty thoughts in her head, clouding everything as they swirled darkly and prevented her from truly and fully enjoying anything.

After all, she had been told to  _ suffer. _

The servant cannot deny the Mistress.

 

\---

 

They spoke more of Mercy, in time, but only carefully - neither of the two wanted to provoke Amélie’s anger again with untoward mentions of the Witch, but they  _ did _ feel like something needed to be done.

In private, they’d wondered whether they could find some sort of Witch-hunter to take care of the problem for them, but then Emily had pointed out that that might mean Amélie would be stuck forever on the floor, never able to be freed from her commands.

Or, even worse, that she might be undone entirely.

Any of those plans had been summarily discarded, of course, but still they wanted to address it somehow.

Amélie, however, had only laughed at their first cautious mention. “Ah,  _ mes chéries, _ how quaint it is of you to be so worried. I can hear it in your hearts, after all, your fear.”

They’d smiled, tightly and slightly annoyed at themselves for not being able to hide their anxieties better, but she didn’t seem annoyed or bothered over it.

“No, you have nothing to fear; I know you have your opinions over her, but I have come to a realization.” Her eyes had shifted out of focus, her smile softening. “I know now what must be done. I believe you can be of aid to me, as well - there are preparations that must be made. Firstly…”

She’d gone silent for a moment, both Lena and Emily glancing to the other in concern and curiosity, but of course neither knew what she was thinking or what she was about to say.

“Firstly,” the Countess began again with a soft sigh and a shake of her head, “you must go up to the Master Bedroom. There is… much to be cleaned and fixed there.”

They’d never been allowed up there, before - up the tower and through the door. They’d cleaned the stairs, but that was as far as they’d ever gone, and they’d exchanged a worried glance at the idea.

She  _ did _ warn them about what to expect, but it was difficult to truly prepare for ahead of time.

The windows were all shattered, curtains hanging in moth-eaten shreds from their tarnished rods, mattress and sheets long since devoured to a loose pile of fragments by decades’ worth of rodents and birds. Nests dotted around spoke to both, as well.

Nothing had touched the corpse, though.

If  _ corpse _ was even a fair word.

He looked less like a person, less like a body, and more like one of the bog-mummies Lena had seen during the travels of her youth in glass cases at traveling sideshows and faires. Shrunken, shriveled skin, still intact; everything dried and preserved, but hardly in any state like it was in life.

It hardly weighed anything at all, as they picked it up to take it away - and neither of them looked at the blank spot on the rug next to him, the space beside Gérard’s corpse where there had been no debris on the floor, and the rug was almost worn threadbare due to some person’s repeated presence.

They knew what it meant, they knew exactly what it meant and the repeated visits to the tower that it described, but it just hurt too much to look at.

They were going to get a new rug, anyway.

 

\---

 

Snow built up in small drifts on the small crossbars of the window.

_ Snow. _

Amélie frowned as she looked upon it, knowing that she paid little attention to time’s passage, but still thinking it strange. She wasn’t sure when she’d last asked for the curtains to be opened, but it had been some time she thought. Perhaps it was an early snow, but she could hardly tell - Emily could have, she kept track of the days and the seasons it seemed, but she was asleep against Amélie’s side.

Regardless, it certainly looked like snow.

“Hmm. I thought they’d have run off to the village by now, and brought back a horde with pitchforks and torches.”

Amélie’s muscles all tensed at the voice, the familiar voice - the Witch, once more, from the shadows. Her hand stilled in Lena’s hair, her eyes remaining fixed on the window.

“And if they had?” Her voice was soft, quiet, swallowed easily by the heavy silence that blanketed the dining hall in the absence of a fire. “Would you have come to my aid when I needed you?”

The instant a hand touched her cheek, Amélie leaned into it, reaching for that familiar contact again. “Who, of  _ course _ I would have, my dear.”

The Countess could not tell whether it was truth or lie. She never could, with the Witch.

Still, she knew her part.

“I knew you would,” she whispered, tears springing to her eyes - and it was no difficulty on her part to bring them up. They were quite self-inspired.

“Their minds became clearer with every passing day,” she explained, her whisper of a voice nearly a whimper, “with every day I could not feed upon them, every unrestrained heartbeat of theirs, even as their torture continued.”

“Such cruel things they said to you,” Mercy murmured in agreement, stroking at the Countess’ cheek from behind.

Amélie nodded firmly - they had been, horribly cruel soft words, and she’d been so grateful when they ended, but that end didn’t mean she forgot their existence. Forgot their roots. “Then in time, they were free of my will entirely, I- I had to resort to other methods to force their compliance, the only thing I could do.”

“Creative thing, aren’t you? A good plan; you cannot rely on power alone to bear you out.” Mercy leaned down and kissed at the top of her head, stroking a hand down from her cheek across a breast. “But, you thought it fitting to invite them to lie next to you? Strange, my dear.”

“It was  _ their  _ idea,” Amélie hissed, quietly but angrily. “They spoke some foolishness of love, but I knew I could have them do my bidding through such a farce so I permitted it.”

_ “Permitted? _ Were you in any state to  _ refuse?” _

The Countess dropped her head with a sad noise, but it was lifted swiftly by a fingertip under her chin - lifted back to upright, and then tilted further back as well, and Mercy’s lips met hers hungrily for a moment before they withdrew and went to her ear. “Have you learned your lesson this time, my dear?”

Amélie shivered. “Yes, Mistress. I know what I must do.”

“Good!” Mercy sounded delighted, as if the entire sad procession had been forgotten and set behind them, but Amélie knew better than to think for even a second that that was the case. “Stand then, my dear, your punishment is over, kneel and suffer no more - oh, and do wake up your little… whatever they are. We can’t even call them thralls anymore, can we? Ha!”

With a sneer, the Countess stood, stretching tall in the moonlight for the first time in so very long - her knees felt triumphant as they left the stones, her suffering lifted from her with a word.

The foggy fugue of guilt and sadness rushed away and was replaced, largely, by anger. Anger which had dwelt behind it all but unable to come to the forefront due to compulsion, anger which pulled her lips back and let her sharp teeth gleam in the night.

It had perhaps been a fixture of her new life that the anger did not always come out directed at its proper target, but that was convenient.

Fixtures can be relied upon, if one plans ahead of time. A cliff can divert prey just as surely as any hound, if the Huntress knows it is there in the woods.

“I shall call them  _ corpses _ is what I shall do,” Amélie hissed, clapping her hands to wake the other two, and Mercy laughed.

“Oh, you really  _ do _ hate them, don’t you?” One of her hands drew Amélie’s head around, and her attention as well as the two on the floor slowly stirred and went to stand. “Well, I can’t say that’s unwelcome. Perhaps…”

Her eyes flicked to the other two, her grin almost glowing in the moonlight. “Perhaps they can yet serve  _ some _ small purpose, but not in death, my dear. No, you see, there really  _ will _ be awful consequences if you once more fail to successfully learn your lesson, my dear - so perhaps, they can be of some aid.”

She let her hands drop from the Countess, then, stepping forward toward Lena and Emily instead with that same cold and vicious grin, her eyes sharp, and they looked back in fear that was in no way artificial.

Amélie could hear it in their hearts. Right alongside their own anger.

“You are not to kill them, nor harm them in any major fashion - nor permit any other to do the same, my dear. No, they must live, alongside you, and serve as reminders. If ever you begin to err from your path, I would have them there to nudge you in the correct direction again.”

The Countess dipped her head, growling in obvious displeasure. “Yes, Mistress. I understand.”

Moonlight flickered off of their fearful faces, slowly shifting to expressions of relief as the Witch stepped past them with a broad gesture and a flick of the wrist. “Oh, and you are still to refrain from feeding upon them. Now come along, my dear.”

Amélie nodded swiftly, following immediately and close behind. “Of course, Mistress. Allow me to express my gratitude, please.”

Mercy laughed, and shot a grin over her shoulder. “Now what kind of cruel hag would I be if I denied a request like that?”

Lena and Emily bit their tongues, and held their breath until the other two were out of the room, the slam of the heavy door echoing deeply, and then without a word they went to put the curtain back into place again, covering the window.

They’d need it come morningtime. No light could enter.

 

\---

 

Four days, before the Witch left again - four days during which they did not see Amélie save for at mealtimes, and they were never fed upon, and Amélie never even glanced in their direction save for to snarl. She treated them both with open contempt, sneering and threatening, and whenever she did so the Witch would laugh - laugh and grin with delight and triumph, and then Amélie would do something else even crueler than the last, and she would threaten to chase them down and drag them back by their entrails if they ever tried to flee.

Emily and Lena were both glad for the warnings they’d received beforehand, though. Amélie was an incredibly good actress, and every word of cruelty was entirely convincing - every threat a very legitimate fright, until they reminded themselves that it was an act.

Or even afterward.

They were still expected to prepare large, elaborate dinners, but the Witch never ate them and neither did Amélie, of course.

They worked, they cooked, they ate, they sat, and they never talked about it, not with Amélie and not with each other. They played the part of enamoured fools, in love with a person who treated them with nothing but abuse, and it wasn’t even that difficult.

All they had to do was treat Amélie the way she treated the Witch.

On the fifth day, Mercy left. She didn’t say goodbye to Lena or Emily, of course - they only knew she was gone when the Countess came to join them in the gardens.

There was a certain species of wildflower which bloomed only after the first frost, and the garden was resplendent now with velvety purple buds of the same, half-closed in the moonlight and coated with some small drifts and piles of soft snow.

“Snow,” Amélie murmured, kneeling low to pick up a handful of it. The cold had little effect on her anymore, and indeed she could hardly feel the difference. She stared down at the snow in her hand, rather than looking up. “How long has it been?”

Emily swallowed thickly, shrugging. “Well… don’t know, exactly. Not sure how long us two were in there just sitting and out of it, but… s’been more’n a year, at the least. We’ll be in springtime soon. From uh… from the looks of things, I think it’s been two years and a season, probably.”

Slowly, Amélie let the snow fall back to join its fellows on the ground.

“No matter,” she whispered. “What is another winter’s passage? It means nothing to me now.”

The other two came to her side, though, hearing the silent request buried in her words - hearing and obeying, and pressing themselves to her side, and interlacing their fingers with hers. Even Emily, who was on the side where Amélie’s hand was chilled by holding the snow.

“I… apologize, for feigning such cruelty to you,” Amélie whispered, looking out at the dark sky which threatened with some light toward the horizon.

“S’alright, love,” Lena shook her head, clutching tightly at Amélie’s arm.

“Yeah, it’s-” Emily let out a chuckle, “not like you meant it or anything, it was all just an act.”

The Countess just laughed, nodding - it  _ had _ been an act, albeit perhaps accentuated by some reality, some true anger bleeding through into her false words and gestures. Not entirely a manufactured stance, treating an underling with cruelty; it was something she was well-versed enough with from her experiences through the courts, and even if it hadn’t been, she would have easily been able to emulate it.

All she would need do, was to copy the Witch.

“The town's hiring a hunter, to come out here and-” Lena swallowed in lieu of actually finishing the sentence, but Amélie was already nodding.

“I thought that might be the case. It will be really dealt with, however.”

The other two looked to her with concern and confusion, and she smiled and touched at their cheeks in reassurance.

“I have a plan, you will see - and I may need your aid in it, perhaps. Come, now, let us go inside, before too much light falls upon this place,” Amélie glanced over her shoulder to the Château. “There is much yet to do.”

 

\---

 

It was a big risk.

Big enough that Amélie refused to try it upon her true prey first.

One always takes a new rifle to the range and fires upon targets or clay pigeons before taking it out on a hunt, after all.

She heard the heart flagging, heard death setting in, the moonlight streaming down on the man’s open-mouthed face; he laid still and pale to the point one might  _ think _ him dead, but his heart still carried on for a moment, slow and erratic and thready.

How  _ long _ to wait was a question which needed to be answered.

She pricked the pad of her thumb with a silver needle, hissing and recoiling at the pain which was a thousandfold more than any needle-prick should have been, but she moved past it and squeezed at the wound.

That thick, black liquid which she had as blood now welled up in a bead - only slight, but she had to hope that it was enough. If not, she could find another.

This was the fourth such test, after all, the others all resulting in failures. More would hardly matter.

Amélie smeared her thumb across the man’s neck, over the two small puncture wounds there, and she listened to his heart.

Listened to it flicker. 

Fade.

Fail.

Fall silent.

...beat again.

With a laugh, triumphant at the moon, Amélie drew out the blade from her sheath - his heart beat again, and again, and then he gasped and she could see in his teeth and his eyes that it had worked.

Had worked, or was working; she suspected there were aspects which did not truly take hold until after the first feeding, but that didn't matter to her in the slightest.

She plunged down the dagger, between ribs and deep into his heart, and stilled it.

Permanently.

For a long while, she sat and waited - wanting to ensure that he would not be running around without any minding or control, but also, wanting to know for her own purposes what might happen.

His heart never beat again, though. Slain. Quite dead.

Just in case, she left the blade in him, and left him there on the forest floor.


	12. A3S3: The Huntress and the Hunter

**Act Three, Scene Three: The Huntress and the Hunter**

 

\---

 

They’d come a long way.

It had taken months of travel - slowed substantially for the winter, as well, when one of the mountain passes had become closed-off due to an avalanche, but now they’d finally arrived.

Months of travel and hardship on the roads, of scant meals made from dried meats and nuts or whatever else wouldn’t spoil along with maybe the occasional small catch of fish or game, months of cold nights curled up on a bedroll interspersed with the occasional stay in some tiny inn or hunting lodge, and now they were finally in a proper village again.

Sombra hated it.

Hated the shitty little town with its shitty little people and their shitty little houses, the shitty way their shitty eyes kept looking at them both.

She knew she was probably just bitter because she was cold and soaked with rain, but she really didn't see why that should prevent her from being pissed off.

It was a moderately-sized village in one of the smaller counties, but she really didn’t care about that in the slightest. In the long run - meaning the span of the next week or so - all she cared about was getting paid.

In the short run, being the next few hours of that night? Her _only_ interests were getting drunk, getting fucked, getting some food, and getting some rest in a real bed - and not necessarily in that order.

They brought their horses to the public stables, first, drawing looks and eyes the whole way - and of course they did, bedraggled and rain-soaked from the journey. Even if they _hadn’t_ been, they were fairly unique-looking individuals.

It wasn’t every day you saw a woman with purple hair, after all, or a man with a metal arm glowing in the night.

He grumbled something about some meeting with the town council, or committee, or chorus, whatever - she didn’t really care. Someone had sent for them, someone was going to hire them, someone was going to pay them.

If they _didn’t,_ that was where she was going to step in.

With a wave, she said goodbye to her traveling companion, and made a beeline for the nearest hanging sign that indicated any kind of tavern, inn, public house. Anywhere she could get a drink, or twelve.

The moment she stepped inside, Sombra felt better. The rain didn’t drip into her wet hair anymore, and the immediate warmth of the fire in the hearth and the bodies of the pub started to drive away the night’s chill.

It was still a shitty place, but at least she could get drunk, laid, and paid.

The bartender looked at her wide-eyed, but she just rolled her eyes and snapped her fingers, ordering three of whatever he had that was strongest. It ended up being whisky - not her favourite, but it worked.

The first one took the lingering chill away, replacing it with alcohol’s smooth burn instead.

The second polished the edge of irritation off, instilled and sharpened over months of travel.

The third brought a grin to her lips, and an order for two more of the same as well as any kind of hot meal they happened to have immediately on hand.

The fourth came with a thick pewter bowl of even thicker stew.

The fifth brought something less expected.

Sombra was no stranger to strangers, she wasn’t unfamiliar with people buying her drinks in bars - they often did, usually with heavy leers of beady eyes, hoping to either ingratiate themselves or to lower her defences.

She liked that, it was fun. Fun to drink their booze and then laugh them off, and kick their asses if they didn’t take the hint - which wasn’t to say that she never went to bed with anyone from a bar. She did, and damn often, just only when _she_ wanted to.

Although she had to admit that right from the start, this _particular_ incident of drinks-buying was a little different.

A cloak with the hood up concealed the woman’s face, but Sombra heard her voice plenty clearly; smooth and soft but powerful, ordering a bottle of wine and “two more of whatever this poor rain-soaked thing is having.”

“Hey,” Sombra pointed with her stew-spoon, “I’ll give you rain-soaked, but _poor_ is practically an insult - I'll have you know I'm a very moderately _un-_ poor bounty hunter for hire, thank you very much.”

The stranger turned with a light laugh, revealing a pale face with a faint smile, and some very striking golden eyes. “Well,” she replied, “I would hardly wish to insult you.”

With a laugh and a nod, Sombra took one of the newly-acquired whiskies in hand and tipped it back, her displeasure with the town giving way pretty quickly. They had booze, they had food, they had warm fires - and cute strangers, too. Maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.

Her hair dried as she made some idle conversation with the newcomer, finishing off another bowl of stew and three more whiskies in the same time.

“An awful trek, that must have been,” the stranger shook her head. “Why you would make such a terrible journey is beyond me.”

Sombra sucked in air between her teeth, grimacing. “Yeah, it was - but hey, it’s over now, and soon we’re gonna get paid. Desperate people are always good for coin.”

The stranger tossed her head back for a laugh, the hood of her cloak still up, then turned to fix Sombra with a wide grin. “Oh, indeed they are - for coin or for whatever else one would have of them, is that not the case?”

With a snicker and a nod, Sombra blindly reached out for another glass and drank it down. It wasn’t even one she’d ordered - it was mead, from the man sitting beside her, but she didn’t even really notice his presence.

Who would’ve cared about the rest of the pub, with someone like _that_ sat right next to her?

“Yeah, real exciting life being a monster hunter,” she sighed, running her fingers through her dryer-than-it-had-been-but-still-damp hair. “Running from place to place, taking care of problems, never even getting two weeks to just sit somewhere and relax.”

“Mm, it sounds it, very exciting indeed,” the stranger murmured, reaching out and leaning in a bit, and Sombra quite liked that.

It turned out the stranger was just freeing a piece of a leaf which had become lodged in Sombra’s hair - but Sombra didn’t care about that. What she cared about was how leaning forward revealed a little more through those undone top few buttons of the stranger’s cloak, how much prettier those golden eyes were up close.

Golden eyes which were looking back at her, anyway, not at the leaf.

Sombra’s grin widened as the stranger slowly leaned back into her place, still not breaking eye contact. She’d been right about something, desperate people were always good for whatever you wanted from them, and Sombra was well-trained at recognizing desperation.

She could see that this stranger wanted something from her, and she knew exactly what it was, too.

“And… how did you come into this life, then, so nomadic? Is there nothing that holds you to any one place in particular?” The stranger - Sombra still hadn’t learned her name, she vaguely realized, which was a little odd but fine, she could always call out plenty of _other_ stuff - shifted a little closer on their chair.

It was a not-so-subtle inquiry, trying to see if she had family or maybe some husband somewhere, and Sombra saw right through it and chuckled. “Nope. Not since I was a little kid, you know - but hey, everyone’s gotta leave home sooner or later, right?”

She didn’t have to tell the truth about it, didn’t have to say that her family had been taken from _her_ and not the other way around, didn’t have to mention the monsters which had killed them and left her alone on the streets until one day she’d found another orphan of monsters who hated them just as much. Didn’t need to say that _that_ was most of the reason she went around doing this shit anyway.

She didn’t need to say any of that. Hell, most days, she didn’t even like to _think_ about it.

The stranger’s eyes dropped away slightly, then, a small sad smile coming to her lips as she met Sombra’s gaze again. “I suppose that is the way for most. I wouldn’t know, myself - I… never left my home. It left me.”

You didn’t last long on streets or as a hired gun if you weren’t good at spotting lies, and Sombra knew the truth when she saw it. She was looking at it right then, too - at someone who’d lost their family, just like she had, and suddenly she felt something deep inside.

Something she usually only felt when she saw a kid in an alley or the gutter, something she felt when people cried - _real_ tears, not the fake ones that were just trying to pave the way, but when people cried real tears and felt real fear over things, she sometimes felt just a little tug.

In under the gut, somewhere the booze couldn’t quite reach, a little tug.

Her hand went out to rest on the stranger’s shoulder. “That- that really sucks. That’s actually, uh…” she sighed heavily, hanging her head. “That’s kinda what happened with me too. My family…”

A hand came to rest on her forearm on the counter as a finger raised her chin, gently, until she looked into the stranger’s eyes once more. Not that she really wanted to look _away_ from them at all.

Even though, for some strange reason, she kinda did.

It wasn’t like _she_ wanted to, but it was like her eyes did - they kept trying to point other places a little bit, like she was trying to make them look at a fire or the sun or something. It was odd, but she didn’t really think about it.

Particularly not after the stranger started to talk again.

“So sad,” she whispered, shaking her head. “It is always terrible to lose, is it not? It makes us want to… grab whatever is there, all the tighter…”

The hand on her forearm started to slide downward, slowly, toward the cuff of her coat, and Sombra’s eyes still flickered, but it was a little more focused now, at least. Those golden eyes, down to painted lips which quirked a little at the corner as she did.

“Yeah,” Sombra nodded. “Whatever we can find, whatever we want-”

“What _ever_ we want,” the stranger agreed vehemently as her hand left Sombra’s coat, and found Sombra’s hand instead, skin meeting skin wholly for the first time.

_Cold._

Sombra’s eyes dropped away from the stranger’s - _she_ should’ve been the colder one, after the damn ride through the rain she’d had, but this stranger’s hands were like ice.

Actually, no they weren’t. Ice would’ve been colder, more striking and stark, would’ve felt like _more._

This stranger had hands like a corpse.

“Your hands are cold,” Sombra murmured, a slight frown crossing her face before a finger met her chin and redirected her attention up to the stranger again.

Up to her, and away from her hands.

“Yes, they are,” she smiled slightly, batting her eyelashes in what was surely a jesting gesture which Sombra snickered at. “Could I barter for a favour from you, to help me warm them?”

Sombra quirked an eyebrow, concerns forgotten as she leaned forward on her stool a little. “Hmm, now see, drinks are one thing - but a _favour?_ I dunno, not sure I want to start swapping favours with a stranger.”

She really liked the grin on the stranger’s lips, it was just the right might of self-assured and predatory; everyone wanted to feel wanted, sometimes, and this didn’t feel like the leering men who bought her drinks sometimes. This made her feel more like she was some kind of a prize, it made her feel desired in a very deep way.

The stranger leaned in again, Sombra’s eyes flicking down to the cloak just briefly as lips came near her ear - near enough that goosebumps rose up her neck, fine hairs standing on end.

“My name is Amélie,” the stranger whispered, “now, won’t you tell me yours? Then, we might no longer be strangers - and besides,” Sombra jumped slightly as a hand caressed at her knee and Amélie huffed a soft laugh, “then, I will have something to moan to the walls.”

Sombra hurriedly tossed a coin purse onto the counter - enough to cover some of what she’d bought, at least, with plans to pay off the rest of the bill in the morning along with whatever a room’s rental for the night would cost - but then saw that Amélie had already laid out a handful of gold coins.

She barely had enough time to snatch the purse back before Amélie was tugging her off and away.

They dashed up the stairs, lips meeting desperately, hands roaming freely; Amélie’s were quite cold, at first, but it felt exhilarating - Sombra barked a laugh of shock when Amélie’s hand slipped up underneath her shirt and roamed over her ribs, but she caught it through her shirt and held it there, tugged it toward a breast as Amélie just put on that same mischievous lips-closed grin.

Sombra was sure that her own hands weren’t much warmer, anyway - they felt numb as they tugged at the buttons of Amélie’s cloak, and she couldn’t attribute that _all_ to the whisky. Amélie didn’t seem to care at all though, or even to notice as Sombra got her cloak free and ran cold hands up inside her shirt, stroking and loosely clawing at ribs and belly and back.

Amélie pushed the door open, and Sombra slid the door-bar into its slots to keep it closed after they were inside. There were nights she didn’t mind being joined by other impromptu parties, but this one felt like something she wanted to be a little more private.

Sombra laughed as Amélie stripped her shirt off with a growl, obvious desire and hunger showing in her eyes - and then, she remembered something.

“Sombra, by the way,” she held out a hand to be shaken, wearing a wide grin and a pair of tights and nothing else.

“Sombra,” Amélie repeated with a smirk, shaking Sombra’s hand and then pulling her in by it, kissing her fiercely. “Pretty name. Pretty name for a pretty girl - but I think, _ma chérie_ , you will be using _mine_ first.”

Then she lifted Sombra effortlessly and carried her back to the bed, laid her down on it and tugged off the tights and tossed them to the ground. Sombra grabbed at Amélie’s hair, following her head down as she kissed at Sombra’s neck, down between her breasts, across her belly, and then frustratingly out along the top of Sombra’s thigh despite every tug in the hair trying to encourage her back up and inward instead.

Amélie’s chuckle made it quite clear that she knew what she was doing, though - that she _knew_ just how much her teasing made Sombra’s pulse race - and she started to turn her trail around.

The kisses shifted to the inside of Sombra’s knee, and then slowly traveled upward, along the inside of her thigh. Sombra could feel her heart racing, could feel the pulse through the artery in her thigh pressing against Amélie’s lips - could feel those lips moving higher and higher, and they started to draw little gasps from her mouth as she let her eyes slide shut.

She never even saw the fangs.

 

\---

 

McCree left the town hall grumbling. He’d spoken with the aldermen there, and with a few of the physicians as well, the chief undertaker, and a few others.

“Fuckin’ Vampires,” he grunted, shaking his head.

Luckily, he came prepared for any eventuality. It was the reason he was still alive.

One hand - his metal hand - stayed tightly wrapped on a flask of holy water at his belt. The aldermen had thought they were _safe_ here in the town, they assured him that the creature never came this far and stayed only in the woods or up in the Old Castle.

They were idiots, but that’s why they’d hired him.

He knew that only a truly stupid beast would openly threaten its prey in the warren, and that was exactly the problem with Vampires.

They _weren’t_ stupid.

Every passerby, McCree glanced at with intense suspicion, the wide brim of his hat keeping his eyes free from the falling rain. Any one of them could’ve been the beast - or one of its servants, the bloodthralls that had no will of their own anymore.

He didn’t trust a single one of them, not one; didn’t trust a single person in this town _except_ for one, in fact.

“Now where the fuck didja go, Shadow,” he muttered to himself, looking around from the stables. One of the first things he saw was a hanging wooden sign, swinging in the storm, and he chuckled and headed in that direction.

A warm pub, definitely seeming like her kind of place - he ordered a meal from the bar, and a whisky as well. They didn’t have bourbon, of course, which he preferred, but it was fine. At the end of the day he just wanted to chase away the chill.

One hand stayed on his revolver as he ate in silence, paid, and then asked the bartender about a woman with odd clothes and hair that went purple at the ends. The bartender directed him to one of the rooms upstairs, paid for already, and he looked a little like he’d been having a bit too much of his own wares.

Little foggy in the eyes, fuzzy in the head.

Jesse McCree had been on the road for a long time, and had learned a lot about survival - learned what to do, and what not to do, and _trusting_ was pretty high up the list of things not to do.

No man was an island, though, and everyone needed at least one person to count on. He’d learned that too.

He climbed the stairs cautiously, nudging the door open with one hand on his revolver and one on his holy water. The door swung easily and he heard a familiar voice.

“Hey! Was wondering when you’d get done with all that boring shit, get in here.”

“That _borin’ shit_ is what pays for the liquor,” McCree replied with a smirk. “Not to mention yer little outfits and all.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sombra shot back, rolling her eyes, “but that’s the _interesting_ shit - now c’mon, what’s the deal?”

Paranoia doesn’t end easily, and while he trusted Sombra he still didn’t trust the room, or the inn, or any of the taverngoers downstairs or the other patrons in other rooms, so he slid the door-bar into place.

It wouldn’t stop anything supernatural, he knew, nor would it stop the inn’s staff who would have a key of sorts for it - but, it would at least give a moment’s notice.

He knew his gun-hand, too. All he _needed_ was a moment.

“Well, Shadow,” he sighed, tossing his hat off to the side and looking to Sombra, laid out on the bed and wrapped up in a thick robe, “you ain’t gonna like this one.”

She snickered, crossing her arms. “Do I like _any_ of ‘em? Now c’mon,” she patted at the bed’s edge. “Kick off your boots and take off your belt and relax. Gimme the details.”

With a chuckle and a sigh, he did kick his boots off, his feet complaining from the duration they’d spent trapped up in there - and his nose complaining at the scent they gave off, but it wasn’t anything new and was hardly worse than anything else that was smelled on a daily basis.

He pulled off his poncho and draped it over the back of a chair, and did sit on the edge of the bed, and he did start to fill her in on what was happening, but he _didn’t_ take his gun-belt off.

Paranoia doesn’t end easily.

 

\---

 

“Vampires, huh?” Sombra didn’t look happy after he'd given his explanation, relaying what the townsfolk had told him and adding in a bit of his own knowledge or conjecture.

McCree didn’t blame her for being unhappy, either. They were a big threat to be up against, Vampires, a far cry from the mostly more beast-like creatures they tended to fight, things which could more easily be trapped and killed or otherwise dealt with - things which didn’t necessarily have much of a capacity for thought.

“Yeah,” he grunted, “don’t know how many, either. You ever run up against one before?”

Sombra laughed. “A Vampire? You kidding me? You think I’d still be _around_ if I had?”

He just chuckled and shook his head, but there was no humour in it.

Sombra shuffled a little closer, nudging his shoulder and drawing his eyes. “Hey. The fuck’s up with that - what’s going on, Jesse?”

With a sigh, he laid back on the bed and draped a hand - his metal hand - over his eyes.

Trust was one thing. History was another. They'd been traveling together for years, and he _did_ trust Sombra, but that didn’t meant she knew everything from his past.

Neither did he, was part of it.

“I… I’ve run up against a few, in the past - b’fore I started runnin’ around with you. They’re fast, they’re strong, they’re vicious… and they’re _smart._ I ain’t gonna lie, Shadow, they’re- I mean, hell, one of ‘em damn near killed me.”

It was a little odd, having an arm of metal. Odd for everyone who saw it, and odd for him as well, because he couldn’t _quite_ feel it. Some kind of sensation, but not even close to the same as his other one.

Still, he noticed at least when Sombra’s hand brushed over it - noticed it and opened his eyes to see her staring down at her own fingers tracing over his arm.

“That how you got this thing?” Her eyes flicked to his, and she’d always had weird eyes but they looked a little different. He wasn’t sure if she was scared, or what, but she looked like he’d never seen before.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Give or take. Made a uh… made a deal, to get some vengeance.”

“Did it work?”

Again, he sighed. “Could say that, I guess.”

Sombra’s eyes flicked to meet his. “Worth it?”

He didn’t need to answer, though, and he could see in her face that he didn’t - that she already knew the answer was no.

She looked melancholy, disturbed, glum - not in the active and pissed-off way she did after a long ride, looking like she'd punch the first person that looked at her wrong and often doing just that.

No, this was a far softer and sadder look, one he hadn't even seen for the first year or two of their friendship. One he'd had to earn through trust and time; legitimate sadness and concern and worry.

She didn't wear it often. Usually it was all smirks and jokes with her, and rolling eyes - he'd really only seen this kind of thing very briefly.

Mostly when the topic of _her_ past came up.

“What’s going on in there, Shadow?” McCree raised an eyebrow. “Don’t know that I’ve ever seen you like this before, least not with that smell o’ whisky on your breath.”

She let out a laugh, still looking down at her hand resting on his forearm, and shrugged. “What, like you never get a little worried? Like you never… have a close call, start to think about stuff?”

He sat up slightly, propping himself on one elbow - leaving the metal arm where it was because it felt rude to move it away from underneath her hand, but her hand shifted anyway until it was touching his, matching it like a shell.

“What’re you-” he caught his words behind his teeth as she looked up, meeting his eyes. There was sadness and worry there, but also, deeper, there was desire - in the way she locked gazes with him, unabashedly, not looking away in the slightest even as her hand started to drift again.

“C’mon, Jesse,” she said with a loose smirk, one finger hooking underneath the edge of his gun-belt. “You think I haven’t seen you looking at me? We’ve been running around, what, four years now? ‘Bout time we did something about it.”

He’d seen her get a little tipsy and a little randy before, and he could smell the whisky now, but this didn’t seem like that. She wasn’t flinging herself out there the way she usually did - this was slow, and calm, and exact. Very deliberate.

Very deliberate, and accordingly, difficult to say _no_ to - not in the least of which because she was right. He _had_ looked, and seen her athletic body and her mischievous smirk, the occasional sadness in her eyes and the suppressed joy when they helped out some street urchin and didn’t even get a haypenny in return.

He’d seen her, he’d talked to her, he knew her - and he _did_ want her, he just hadn’t thought she wanted _him._

“Well- hold on now,” McCree stammered, shifting backward a little. Sombra followed, though, leaning forward to match his motion and continuing to run her fingertip slowly along the edge of his gun-belt.

“If you’re worried about taking advantage of me, you white-knight weirdo,” she chuckled, “don’t be - you and I both know I could drink ten times this much and still be walking around.”

“W- I mean, sure, but still, you-” he shuffled again, but then his back met headboard - no further he could flee - and he saw her smirk widen a little.

“This just- seems a little _sudden,_ is all,” he protested, his voice tight from discomfort - primarily because it was the first time in recent memory that anyone’s hand other than _his own_ had been within a foot or two of his belt buckle.

Sombra shrugged a little, her fingertip tracing the metal of his belt buckle as she glanced down to it. “Well, yeah, maybe. I dunno - been thinking about it a while, just kinda risky with us always traveling together, y’know? Doesn’t matter if shit goes south with some random stranger from some town we’re never going back to.”

McCree’s tension lessened a bit, slowly relaxing as she stopped advancing for a moment at least. Truth be told, though, most of the tension was rooted in himself - rooted in his conscious mind’s desire to still his hands’ _un_ conscious desires to reach out and pull her in, to run through her hair, to peel off her still-damp clothes; rooted in his own oft-ridiculed sense of morality that told him her should make sure that _she_ was sure, first.

She definitely didn’t _seem_ un-sure about it all, though, and his doubts started to mock him as Sombra kept talking.

“Guess the reason it’s coming out tonight is just…” she took a breath and let it out as a heavy sigh, her shoulders sagging a little. “I mean, talk about a mood-kill, but hey, maybe this’ll be our last one, right? You said yourself you already lost an arm to one of these things. Maybe this time it’s even worse.”

“M- yeah, maybe,” he agreed softly as her eyes met his again, her finger curling under the edge of his belt.

“So, you know, I figured…” she shrugged, smirking again, “if it might be the last night, why not make it a good one at least, right? I mean - you wouldn’t want to make a girl feel unwanted the night before she dies, would you?”

There was a beat of silence before McCree started laughing, the last of his doubts and worries allayed by Sombra’s teasing tone and the familiarity of it. It made sense that anyone would act a little off when they were afraid - and she wasn’t exactly the best at openly displaying her worries to other people, anyway, which he didn’t blame her for. He knew he had the same thing himself, sometimes.

She didn’t wait for him to actually respond, because it didn’t seem like a response was coming. Not one of words, at least, but he leaned forward from the headboard with a grin and swept his hat off, tossed it to the side, and with a chuckle Sombra leaned forward to close the distance.

The gun-belt, or moreso the gun held within its holster, made a very audible clunk as it hit the floor.

Followed shortly by other things - Jesse’s vest and Sombra’s coat, the latter for the second time in the space of a few hours. More items of clothing, haphazardly tossed aside as the room filled more with the sounds of soft gasps and moans and passionately-whispered names.

The uneven wood of the headboard dug into McCree’s shoulderblades a little, but he barely spared a second thought for that - a military man of sorts, he was more than a little acquainted with pain, and it mattered so little when Sombra’s hands were tracing over the scars on his ribs and his chest as she shifted to straddle him.

They moaned sharply into each other’s mouths as she lowered herself onto him and began to roll her hips, sharp-clawed fingernails digging into his shoulders, but he didn’t care - he just hissed and grabbed at her hips just as tightly, thrusting back up at her, matching her for everything.

Sombra threw her head back and let out a rough shout which trailed into a laugh, then toward moan as she grabbed a handful of her own hair and looked down to meet his eyes again.

He liked the look there, very much; she’d always had impressive eyes, and the mix of joy and hunger in them was practically inebriating as she rose and let herself drop again.

In fact, he was so focused on her eyes, that he never noticed her _teeth._

She leaned forward, grabbing a handful of his hair and holding their faces right next to each other, hissing and heatedly murmuring hot words of promise and lust as she quickened her pace until his fingers were clutching desperately at the sheets and at her ribs.

When she threw her head back again with a sharp cry, an ecstatic shout as he continued to erratically thrust and barely hold himself back from the edge - only _then_ did he notice the teeth.

The fangs.

The shock of it sank through him instantly, like a spike of ice through to his core as he shuddered through an orgasm but didn’t let himself lose control to it, didn’t let himself collapse into it as he wanted to.

His hand shot out, he reached…

...but his gun-belt was far off to the side on the floor.

There was never any hope he could get to it as Sombra’s climactic moans and shouts turned to laughter, as she grabbed him by the shoulders and shoved him roughly back against the headboard and started to ride him again.

“Not so fast, baby,” she whispered, licking the sharp tips of her fangs in anticipation as she locked eyes with him, grinding her hips against his with an inhuman and unholy groan of lust. “I’m not finished with you yet…”

 

\---

 

Amélie hadn’t said how good the blood would taste.

Sombra’s eyes rolled back and slid shut as she moaned, drinking deeply as his fingers grasped at her skin - she really _had_ wanted him for a while, but maybe not exactly like this.

Although, she had to admit, _like this_ was excellent.

Amélie had given her quite clear instructions, very specific, and she followed them - with a few added embellishments, for fun. After all, Amélie had never said she had to fuck Jesse, but she’d also never said _not_ to.

She also hadn’t said how good the blood would taste.

Sombra wanted to keep drinking, to just keep going and going, riding and sucking hot blood from his neck _forever,_ but a dark compulsion stopped her - forced her fangs back from his neck as she shuddered and heard his heart begin to fail.

Quickly, she reached over onto the side table and picked up a silver pin which had been lying there, jabbing her thumb with it and growling at the pain it caused. She squeezed up a bead and wiped thick black blood over the fang-wounds near his collarbone - between his bandanas and his shirt-collars, they’d never be seen.

The sight of it did give her a moment’s pause, though.

“That’s… kinda fucked up,” Sombra muttered to herself, looking at the smear of black viscous liquid which had leaked from her wound which still throbbed with pain.

Not nearly as much as the rest of her throbbed with hunger, though.

McCree’s heart flickered and then began to quicken again, but Sombra’s head whipped around at the sound of another heart - full and quick, swift and strong, someone standing in the doorway behind her.

Short brown hair, a little messy; cute freckles faintly dotting her cheeks; plain-looking clothes, a shirt that laced up toward the top, laces that the woman’s hands now tugged at to loosen - loosen and pull down, showing a pair of heart pendants in gold and wood and baring her shoulders.

Shoulders and _neck._

Sombra pushed herself off of Jesse with a soft noise, the sound a cat makes when stalking its prey.

The woman’s heart was beating so swiftly, but it wasn’t the tempo of fear.

She was _excited._

 

\---

 

Jesse McCree cursed his luck, hardly for the first time, as his vision faded to black - but every man had his time, and he’d certainly put more than his fair share of them into the ground, so it was probably fair.

His biggest regret, really, was getting Sombra all caught up in it.

That was his last thought, before the world faded away - the sharp sensation of teeth on his neck, claws at his ribs, Sombra’s weight on his hips.

The constant cold chill and odd pinching pain of his metal arm.

The guilt.

Everything faded away and left him, and for a moment - just one, perfect moment - he was at peace.

Then, with a gasp, it all returned, but overlaid atop it like a thick blanket was a sudden _hunger._

His eyes flew open and darted over immediately, seeing a young woman standing at the doorway with her shoulders and neck bared - she pulled her head off to the side, opening up her neck even more, stepping closer and meeting his eyes.

“Won’t you come have a drink?”

His fingers clutched tightly at the sheets, forcing himself to hold his place; his mind warred with the hunger within him, telling him to hold back, telling him not to give in, telling him not to be one of those monsters. Telling him that there was a difference between monster and man, lines that weren’t meant to be crossed.

It worked.

For a moment.

It worked right up until he saw a shadow looming behind the woman - worked until he saw Sombra’s familiar face, blood still painting her chin, rise up behind the woman’s shoulder. Worked right up until Sombra bit her and let loose the scent of blood.

In an instant, Jesse’s hands had released the sheets and caught short brown hair instead, his fangs burying themselves in the woman’s neck as he gulped, and gulped, and gulped. Her sharp cry of delight was almost deafening in his ears, as was the sound of her heart - racing with passion, spiking, rushing…

...fading…

Sombra yelped as something flung her from her meal, threw her against the wall where she landed on the ground in a crouch and looked up to her attacker with a hiss and murderous intent, but she was immediately stilled by those sharp golden eyes.

“You _fool,”_ Amélie hissed, snarling at Sombra as she pulled Lena free of the beast-hunter’s grasp, “tell him to stop - and _you_ were not to feed on her!”

“You never told me!” Sombra growled back, her eyes flashing to the crouching McCree. “Stop, Jesse. Take a seat, take it easy.”

He did as he was told, bending instantly to her bidding - and she liked that, and fully planned on exploring it more later, but first she had a bigger bone to pick.

“You never told me not to feed on her,” Sombra accused again, standing and stalking toward Amélie who was slowly lowering the girl - whoever she was - to the ground. “You never said - and you never told me it would taste so _good!”_

Amélie didn’t bother listening or responding, though. With a gesture, she silenced Sombra and stayed her, as she looked down in shock at Lena on the floor.

Her eyes flickered over the girl’s body, over the wounds on either side of the neck still leaking blood slowly, over the smile that rested on her lips.

“You _chose_ this,” she hissed softly, not sure if the words were an accusation or a defence, an interrogation or a query. “You chose this - but did you know what it was you were choosing?”

It was always the question.

 

\---

 

_They’d sat at the table._

_Not for a meal, but for a discussion - a decision._

_“Why?” Amélie had looked at them both sharply. “I could just as easily send any fool from the tavern in there, why must you insist it is one of you?”_

_Emily had glanced up briefly, taking a pair of straws of hay that Lena had brought from the stable and trimming one to half the length of the other. “I’m sure you could, but what if they fight it? What if they resist?”_

_“They won’t,” Amélie had growled dangerously, a snarl disturbing her features._

_“And what if… we want to?”_

_Lena’s soft query had interrupted her anger, drawing her attention and softening her expression - Lena had sat there looking back quite surely, no doubt in her expression as she shrugged._

_“I mean, me’n Em’ve talked about it some, and…” Lena shrugged again, smiling softly, “I mean, we kinda miss it. Li’l bit, the feedings and all, y’know?”_

_Amélie had looked back to Emily, Emily who was studiously focusing on the straws and refusing to look up, Emily whose heart fluttered in worry and pain._

_Her claws relaxed against the tabletop, darkness clouding her thoughts; she could not give them this, the thing they wanted - could not feed on them, not anymore, not as she’d been ordered to avoid it._

_Of course they wanted it, as well. She’d trained them to._

_“No, I didn’t mean-” Lena’s hand had shot out as she saw Amélie’s shoulders slump, the slight dejected posture speaking volumes when displayed on a woman who was normally so composed and deliberate. “I didn’t mean- I mean it’s not your fault or anything, love, just-”_

_“Time to draw the straws I think, dear,” Emily had murmured softly, reaching over her free hand to rest on Amélie’s._

_Lena had hesitated a moment, clearly wanting to say something else - worry on her face and in her eyes, until Amélie had met them again and shaken her head. “You are right, chérie, and I cannot give you this. What does it matter - I could not order you to forego this, could not demand that you leave this alone.”_

_Another moment of silence, Lena’s hand coming to join Emily’s atop hers as Lena frowned. “Of course it matters, love, and of course you could. If you really don’t want us to, we’ll let someone else do it, we just thought for safety and all-”_

_The Countess had shaken her head, though, because it wasn’t true. She really couldn’t order them to ignore their own plan, not anymore._

_Not now that she knew they wanted it._

_“No, you are right,” she’d sighed, relaxing in her chair. “It should be one of you. More trustworthy than a mind’s compulsion, anyway.” History had shown just how much that could fail, after all._

_With a soft smile, Lena had grabbed one of the two straws in Emily’s fist, and tugged it out._

_It was barely as long as her thumb._

_Sighing heavily, Lena’d hung her head, and Emily had chuckled._

_“Why’re you lookin’ so sad, love?” Emily had raised Lena’s chin with a fingertip, smiling. “You’re gonna be the one getting fed on again.”_

_A look of shock had flashed across Lena’s face, and mild anger as well as she half-recoiled. “What? No! No, you- you drew the long straw, love, and long straw means you get the reward.”_

_Emily had laughed, though - laughed and caressed Lena’s cheek, and shaken her head softly. “No love,” she’d whispered, tears shining in her eyes, “long straw means I get to_ choose _who gets rewarded, and I choose you. Enjoy it enough for both of us, yeah?”_

_Lena hadn’t had a response._

_Neither had Amélie._

 

_\---_

 

The memories flicked through the Countess’ mind as she hunched low, and then heard a faint flickery heartbeat.

“And what now?” She laughed, softly, pulling over a silver pin which had fallen onto the floor. “What now, _chérie -_ do I let you die, and curse myself with the lack of you, your jokes, your warmth? Or…”

Amélie sighed, hung her head as she jabbed the pin into her thumb without a sound.

“...or, do I curse _you_ , by making you stay?”

There really was no choice at hand, though. The girl was dying.

Amélie couldn’t have that.

She’d been ordered otherwise, by the Witch - not to harm her permanently, nor permit her harm, and death most certainly counted as harm.

Although, so did her existence.

Conflicting thoughts clashed painfully within her as she reached out and swept her thumb across Lena’s neck, thick black blood mixing with hot red, and then she lifted Lena up and held her close - embracing her warmth for what the Countess was _certain_ would be the last time, one way or another.

Silence.

Silence.

Silence.

A heartbeat.

A gasp.

Amélie sighed softly, pressing a kiss to Lena’s lips as they drew breath once more - cold, as she’d quite feared, but still soft at least. It was something.

“Come now, _chérie,_ let us leave these two. Let us go pay a visit to our dear Emily…”

The Countess rose and spoke a few words to Sombra, told her not to come to the Château until told otherwise, and then pressed her back against the wall and kissed her hungrily.

“No,” she murmured against Sombra’s lips, “I did not tell you how good it would taste - and until I tell you otherwise, you are not to drink again, do I make myself clear?”

Sombra mewled softly, “Yes, Mistress.”

Amélie grinned before nipping at Sombra’s earlobe. “That is right. But do not worry, _chérie_ \- you will feed again, you will feast. I _promise_ you this.”

Sombra nodded, shivering as her Mistress withdrew and left arm-in-arm with the other newcomer, and she could only hope.

Only hope the promise would prove true.


	13. A3S4: Not a Whimper

**Act Three, Scene Four: Not a Whimper**

 

\---

 

The Witch had promised she would always return.

Amélie simply didn’t know how far that promise would extend. Wasn’t sure if she could truly trust it.

The simple truth of the matter, though, was that she was no longer worried the Witch might leave and never return.

Far greater, now, was the worry that Mercy would have nothing to return _to_ \- that Amélie might be destroyed.

She’d done a lot of thinking.

It had seemed so clear, at first; the Witch hated her, and she, the Witch. Then there had come confusion, talk and thoughts of love, actions and words twisting with multiple meanings as everything shifted back and forth.

Now, though, Amélie could see the truth - and the truth made clear what she must do.

Lena and Emily had taught her much about love in the months or more that she’d been captive on the floor, in the years that they’d been with her slowly demonstrating, and it had built upon Gérard; years and years of love in a hundred different ways, from secret smiles shared at social gatherings to moonlit runs through dew-covered meadows that had left her feet chilled and pained but her heart soaring.

Lastly, but far from least, all the Witch had said and done: every sad, longing look of desperation, every soft caress and every sharp strike, every cruel word and kind one.

Amélie thought she had known love, _truly_ known it, but she hadn’t.

What she’d learned was just how specific it was, just how different, just how reciprocal; she could not hope to share the love she had with Gérard with any other, could not use his words or tones on another and hope that they would suffice for love.

No - she could love others, and well, but she needed to approach them on their own terms. On appropriate footing.

A fox snare would hardly help catch a bear; the finest tied fly would not be of any aid in rousing a grouse.

Still, as she looked at the room - fresh, new, and beautiful - she wasn’t sure how to feel about it.

Fresh, new and... beautiful.

It _should_ have been beautiful.

It wasn’t.

Her eyes traced the windows, fine stained glass which had been ordered from Italy by Lena and Emily; flowers and sunrise, not so dissimilar to the tile mosaic in the bathroom. An homage, she’d told herself at first, but now it looked decidedly less than grand.

The floor was bare.

Not bare, entirely - it had a rug as grand as any of the others, or in fact even grander, plush and resplendent in deep vibrant red and thick to keep away the chill of the stones. Grander than any of the others in the Château because this was, after all, the _Master_ bedroom.

Yet, the floor was bare. Bare of him.

Amélie let her eyes fall closed, silently stepping forward, memory carrying her feet to the exact place where he’d laid in death - where she had, time and time again, laid beside him, and held him, and wept.

Her knees crumpled, and she fell to the luxurious rug, and it felt so much worse than the old moth-eaten and tattered one had, the one she’d worn thin by a thousand steps and moments stolen away to lie there.

One hand rose up, to rest where his chest should have been, and when she let it fall it did so, fell to the rug and encountered no resistance on the way - no withered and dried remnant of the chest of the man she’d loved, the man she’d lived with, the man she’d killed.

It should have been better, the new rug and the new windows, the new bed - everything, fresh, as none of the old had been in any state to bother saving it. That was the joy of discarding the old: it made room for the new.

It _should_ have been better, but it wasn’t.

The Countess, with no Count by her side, lay silently for a moment, and not a single tear fell into the new rug, and not a single cry shook the new curtains.

She sat up at a noise, looking over to the door as Emily and Lena entered, and she smiled softly at their uneasy expressions.

There was a time she would have reacted very poorly to them catching her so off-guard, so out of her proper element as a noblewoman, but they’d seen her at her worst now and she hardly cared.

“Exactly as I specified,” she murmured, looking around at the room rather than at them, for a few reasons. “Well done.”

In part, she looked around because she did wish to assay the room and ensure all was set up correctly, but in part it was also because they were so different now. Something in their eyes.

She could see the same hunger there she’d always seen in her own.

“Thanks, love - Mistress,” Emily said with a little laugh, as the two of them came over to join her in sitting on the rug. There was a settee, but the _sitting_ was hardly the important part, at least to them.

Amélie sighed, casting her gaze around the room once more as an arm rose to wrap around each of the others’ shoulders - but only for a moment, before she squeezed them a little tighter and then moved to stand.

“Come,” she held out a hand for each of them, urging them to their feet. “There is much yet to do.”

“So busy lately,” Lena sighed with a feigned tone of annoyance, and Emily giggled.

“Could always go back to the tavern if you like, love - nostalgic for the old days?” Emily grinned widely as Lena snorted and shook her head, and Amélie chuckled and led the way out of the room.

The night was young, fresher than the room was, even, and there was much to be done.

Her hunger didn’t abate simply because she’d foreseen one threat and allayed it. Yes, she had made it so the Vampire Hunter Jesse McCree would never attack her, orders relayed through her new servant to him - but where he was, there were hundreds more.

Perhaps the town, if they became irate enough, would simply rise up _en masse_ and attempt to destroy the whole Château. Amélie rankled at the idea, her lips tugging away from her fangs as her hands clutched involuntarily tighter at those on either side of her.

There was something, though. Presuming that the townsfolk _did_ decide to try to assault them, she was no longer alone - it would no longer be simply her, alone, a single Vampire against a few thousand humans.

No, now there were three of them.

Technically five, all told, but the other two were never at the Château.

 

\---

 

It was a cold night, but she didn’t care, and she knew the others didn’t either. They were beyond such petty things as cold, now.

After all, should not a true _Gift_ be shared?

It was, certainly, the surest embrace - the most glorious thing one could do with a Gift, the highest laud; to share it with another. Not to hide it away within walls and away from prying eyes, as she’d once done with herself. No, the true _love_ of a thing came from the sharing.

She was to embrace the Witch’s gift, and this, then, was her embrace; sharing it with Lena and Emily.

Gift. Curse.

Amélie had stopped worrying much about the Witch, not because she thought that Mercy wouldn’t become irate or because she had no fear of what would happen when the Witch’s fury blew cold - she most certainly _did -_ but for a much simpler reason.

She couldn’t change it.

She’d long since learned that she could have no effect over her Mistress’ anger, she’d been tutored on that fact over the course of a million strikes and hisses, a thousand storms of fury and ire, a hundred thousand different vicious punishments each one more inventive and cruel than the last - and of course she could have no effect over it.

The servant could not deny the Mistress. Could not hope to affect her, to sway her; no, Amélie held no disillusions about her own capabilities in that regard.

There were only a few things she could do, things she _must_ do.

Feed. Embrace the Witch, and her Gift. Protect herself. Protect Emily and Lena.

Feed, she did with gusto - two men in bandit’s garb threatened a pair of women on one of the forest’s many paths and she leapt upon them, snarling and throwing one to the trees and pulling the other one in for a quick nip.

Embrace the Witch, she did with every thought and action - thanking her for the fangs which so easily pierced skin, thanking her for the speed which let her cut off one of the fleeing women with such ease, thanking her for the hypnotic eyes which calmed the woman into silence.

Embrace her Gift, she did with every mouthful - moreso as she pushed a warm body and its swift-beating heart into Lena’s waiting embrace, grinning and laughing at the way Lena’s eyes still rolled back when she got that first ecstatic mouthful of blood.

Protect herself, protect Emily and Lena, she did through every plan and plot she laid in place, every trap set and quick flick of her Huntress’ eyes to the woods - they were to act as a reminder to her, to serve as a guiding force, and she gladly let them.

After all, she had been ordered to, and the servant _cannot_ deny the Mistress.

“You are so… _enthusiastic_ in your feeding, _chérie,_ ” the Countess chuckled, stroking at Lena’s cheek as she guzzled from the veins of one young woman - and Amélie herself leaned in to take a taste at the other side of the woman’s neck, shivering as their shared prey’s sharply joyous cry split the night air.

The women, they did not kill; yes, she was perhaps foolish and should have known better than to walk the forests at night attracting all manner of beasts, but the same could be said for Emily and they hardly deserved to be punished for it.

Emily, who clutched at the shoulders of one bandit, draining him gasping right to the ground - Amélie collected the other one, moaning and groaning in the trees, and tossed him to Lena to finish off.

They deserved their kills.

It had been their plan, after all.

Emily pulled away from hot delicious blood for a moment, just long enough to whistle and call out - the other of the two women, Andreaia, came at her call with a smile and eyes which were just a little hazy, slightly unfocused like a drunk’s would be.

“Well done, well caught,” Amélie lauded her with a grin which still held blood at the corners of her lips. “Go tend to your friend, now - here,” the Countess held out a red napkin, “hold this to her neck, and bring her back with you. We will return to the Château shortly.”

With a curtsy and a quick “Yes, Mistress,” Andreaia was off.

It was more active around the Château now than it had been before - much more like it was before Gérard’s death.

Not _quite_ the same, of course.

“A good plan,” the Countess mused, walking over to her two guzzling and gobbling companions. “And you deserve your rewards for it, _mes chéries.”_

They did hear her, of course - heard her and delighted in the words, moreso than they delighted in the blood they were drinking, but they didn’t pause in the latter to comment on the former. They drank and drank, and Amélie laughed as she watched them and heard two heartbeats flag and falter, and fail, and Lena and Emily arose with a gasp from the bandit corpses.

Youngsters, they were still - Amlie recognized in their hunger and their enthusiasm much of herself, at a younger age, and she had no doubt that in time they would mellow.

Indeed, they already enjoyed much of the finer things; Andreaia had been a compatriot of sorts of Lena’s, and easily fetched back to the Château, and her blood filled crystal chalices nightly as the three of them toasted to their delight. The two still had such elaborate plans, Emily having heard that one could make meringue from blood instead of egg.

Baked in _macarons,_ the meringue had been unexpectedly spoiled, the blood too far-gone from its proper state - but with Andreaia’s aid and blood, the freshly whipped meringue, uncooked, was a delight; delicious and sweet, and marvellously _spreadable_ which just lent itself to so many possibilities. Most certainly, as well, one of the finer things.

Now, though - here in the forest - they deserved perhaps a moment to give over to their more basal side.

Every thing had its place and time, after all, and these two men had _made_ this small clearing into an ambush, had taken it and formed it into a place for cunning and strength to overcome unpreparedness and have their way with it, and they’d fallen into their own trap.

It was fitting, actually. It felt good.

Emily and Lena breathed heavily, but only briefly before their eyes caught on each other - on the blood that still painted their lips and chins, and they flew to one another in lust and hunger. Hands clutched and mouths met in a harsh clash, tongues writhing against one another as the tastes of three different bloods mixed in with their own inherent flavours as well.

“God, sometimes I worry about how hot I find this,” Lena hissed as Emily messily kissed at her neck and then licked away all the blood she’d smeared there, drawing a long groan from Lena’s red and shining lips.

They looked so delicious. The lips, the pair of them - and she was finished with denying herself anything she wished.

Amélie was there in an instant, catching Lena’s lower lip between her teeth, tasting the blood and Emily’s kisses for a moment before pulling away. “Ha, _chérie,”_ she whispered into Lena’s ear, “do not lie to me about this.”

“Bastards had it coming,” Emily grunted, stretching to find the Countess’ mouth with her own and filling it with new tangs of new bloods, and every taste and every practiced sweep and flick of her tongue had Amélie’s heart beating faster and faster, her own blood heating and picking up pace as her hunger increased.

She let it, for a few moments more; Emily’s hands slipped up under her shirt and raked at her ribs, Lena licked at her neck and caught a handful of her hair, and Amélie gasped at the moon before shoving them both back with a huff.

“Home, _mes chéries,_ ” she insisted. “Find Andreaia, and the new one - learn her name as well - and meet me in the Master bedroom.” She grinned at their slight looks of surprise and hope, nodding. “After all, it is the only one we have not yet _christened…”_

Without a further word, they were gone, both of them - heeding their Mistress’ word, yes, but also giving their own silent assent to the plan.

A good plan.

Or so she thought.

 

\---

 

They ended up not putting that plan into place, for one quite simple reason - a reason which awaited her on the steps of the Château, looking as gorgeous as ever in the moonlight.

The Witch.

Amélie always had had difficulty in pinning down quite what her reactions were upon seeing the Witch - there were so many, and they ran so deep. A leap in the heart of hope and hunger, a wish on the tongue for a taste of that powerful blood, a desperate longing in her ear to hear soft kind words, a vicious snarl of twists in her gut, a hard lump in her stomach.

All these and more, but the net result was shock, excitement. “Mistress,” Amélie called out, dismounting from her horse and moving to meet her at the front door.

“Out for the night, were we?” Mercy raised an eyebrow, initially resisting as Amélie reached out for one of her arms but then giving in to it, letting herself be drawn forward as the Countess trailed kisses up her arm, over her shoulder, and up her neck to her lips.

“Home for the night, now,” Amélie whispered, very pleased that the Witch was in a good mood - it always was better when she was.

“Mm, yes, and your little reminders beat you here as well.” There was a moment of something odd, something concerning, in the Witch’s eye - but it gave way almost immediately to her normal teasing glimmer. “You might want to consider a faster horse, my dear.”

Amélie’s lip tugged at the mention of the other two. “They go where I tell them, when I order them to do so - a small trip for them, a meal for me.”

“Though you seem to have plenty full larders, now,” Mercy murmured, glancing back over her shoulder to the lit windows.

There were a half-dozen inside, now - Amélie wanted to stay away from having _too_ many, for fear that it would draw too much attention too quickly. The three of them alone had warranted excursions from the village and a Hunter hired from far-off lands; what might twenty or fifty end up bringing?

At the same time, she recalled how unfortunate it had been to be forced to hunt for every hunger. Between that and a fickle appetite, it had been entirely unpleasant and she had no wish to experience it again - nor to bring it upon Lena and Emily.

Two upon whom to feed seemed plenty. Emily and Lena had been more than enough for her, and between the five in the Château - now six, with tonight’s capture - there would be plenty of fresh blood for the three of them.

Not that they necessarily stuck to two each, of course.

“I tired of the necessity for a hunt,” Amélie explained, “and of course I can no longer feed upon… _those two.”_

“Of course,” the Witch replied, a smirk at the corner of her lips - surely at the distaste in Amélie’s voice when she spoke of the other two.

“Many other advantages, as well,” the Countess explained swiftly, “which I would be more than pleased to demonstrate to you, Mistress. Would you come in, and stay for a while? I’ve much to show you - a meal will be prepared, a grand one, and a bath if you would have it.”

“Such luxuries,” Mercy laughed lightly, holding out her hand to be escorted in to the house.

The door behind them shut out the cold night.

Not that either of them cared for the cold.

 

\---

 

The Witch ate none of the meal, of course - nor did anyone else. Amélie could not, and she ensured that every member of her house staff was there, including Lena and Emily, but they did not eat. They only served.

Mercy’s eyes flicked away from Amélie at times, throughout the meal, and the Countess didn’t like what she saw when they did - didn’t like the look of curious concern in those eyes, nor the suspicion, nor the disappointment when they looked at her again.

She’d seen anger, before, and it was bad, but disappointment was far worse.

Afterward, the Countess offered a tour of the new renovations, leading the Witch from room to room. She pointed out this detail or that one, brightness in her voice, but her enthusiasm failed to rub off on the Witch who simply followed, silently ruminating on something from the thoughtful look on her face.

“I have been thinking of much,” Amélie explained, leading the way up the steps in the tower. “I knew there must be a way to prove my love to you. I realized that there must always be a way of this.”

After all, Emily and Lena had been able to convince _her_ of it; surely she would be able to convince Mercy.

The Witch only nodded in silence, though, still sunk in thought, and when Amélie opened the door to the room, Mercy hardly reacted.

Not then, not afterward.

“Well?” Amélie prompted, a few moments of silence later. “What do you think? I thought it could be your room, perhaps - for whenever you wished to stay. A room befitting your position.”

That, for the first time, seemed to get a reaction, but not the one the Countess was wishing for - Mercy let out a laugh, just a single one, and it sounded intensely pained.

“My position,” she whispered softly, turning to meet Amélie’s eyes. “And, tell me, what position is that?”

“The highest one,” the Countess insisted urgently. “The most elevated position of love, I swear it - I _do.”_

She had so hoped. She had been foolish to hope, perhaps, as any traveler unprepared in the forest might be foolish to hope they will go unharassed, but she had hoped.

Had so desperately hoped that she would see the Witch’s face change.

That she might get to see that look of melancholy give way to one of joy, of excitement - that the façade might finally crack and she would get to see the brightness and happiness within. That she might, for once, rather than _disappointing_ or _angering_ , be able to bring her Mistress that delight.

She had so hoped.

Not so, though.

Quite the opposite, in fact; the Witch’s face twisted into a mess of confusion and upset, a bewildered expression of irritation as she dropped Amélie’s hands.

“Really?”

The soft words were always worse than the hard ones, and the Countess had so hoped that she might avoid any more of them.

“Do you, really?” Mercy retreated a step, gesturing around loosely with a laugh. “Is- is that what this is, this room, it’s proof, is it? Or - or is this, my dear, a _distraction.”_

It was Amélie’s turn, then, to look confused.

A hurt expression clouded the Witch’s features, and she crossed her arms with a soft huff. “Call them here. You know of whom I speak.”

She did, too - it was clear in the look on the Witch’s face, the distaste. “Emily,” she called out down the stairs, “Lena - would you come here?”

Then she turned, to look at the Witch in confusion again, expecting anger or fury, insults or abuse.

She didn’t get them.

“Love, is it?” Mercy laughed again, a small laugh that hardly even managed to sound properly dismissive. “So you say - but tell me, my dear, did I ever say you could not lie to me about that?”

Amélie blinked at the realization that she hadn’t - so, Mercy thought her still untruthful, but that could be fixed. “Well, tell me to then,” she suggested.

 _“I_ am the one who gives the orders here, not _you,”_ the Witch snarled, briefly, before making a small noise and returning to that same softly hurt resting state - a slight draw-in of the eyebrows, a faint pout of the lip.

“You say you love me,” Mercy sighed, “yet you… steal from me? Did you think I would not _notice?”_

“Notice what?” Amélie tried to maintain her composure, fearing another punishment even worse than the last - unsure of how such a thing could come to be, but certain that, if _anyone_ could devise one, it would be her Mistress.

Her Mistress, who didn’t respond - who stood there with her arms crossed and that same slight and slightly hurt pout, and shook her head just barely until two sets of footsteps came to the door.

“Mistress?” Lena and Emily chimed in chorus, standing side-by-side in the doorway, but Amélie glanced to them in confusion and then focused her gaze on the Witch again, awaiting her next instructions.

“Tell them to smile for me.”

Amélie had no chance to pause to sigh. “Smile for her.”

They did. Broad, wide, unabashed smiles - huge sharp and dangerous grins, fangs gleaming in the moonlight as the smiled and met her eyes, and the Witch let out a single sad laugh again.

“There,” she gestured, “there is the proof of your love. You steal from me with one hand, and with the other, you point at some new sheets and a rug, you-”

“I threw away the pointless memories,” the Countess insisted, “so that I could devote myself to you - I _shared_ your Gift with-”

“It was not _yours_ to _share!”_ Mercy’s voice cracked, not in anger - not like a parent admonishing a child, but like a shrill teen insisting that they were in the right. Tightly-balled fists at her side slowly loosened as she returned to shaking her head again, slowly.

“I- I did not know this,” Amélie promised, “but when one was injured, my hand was forced - you told me I was not to permit them to perish, my two cruel reminders. With every moment, I-” she swallowed back a sigh and refused to glance away to the other two. “With every moment, I see the pity in their eyes, and I hate it.”

It was true, too.

That wasn’t to say that there wasn’t much else to delight in - their creativity and their enthusiasm, their joy and their love for her, and so many other things, but behind and beyond it all she still saw pity in their eyes sometimes and it made her recoil in revulsion.

Quite like the Witch, then.

The Witch, who continued to shake her head. “Then you had already failed by that point, my dear. You cannot steal from me and hope to justify it as paying off a debt you incurred - yet, you have. Stolen.”

Amélie’s confused frown deepened, as she realized a familiarity in Mercy’s expression.

She looked _defeated._

The Countess had never seen such a thing on her Mistress before - anger and revulsion, fury and lust, passion and love, and even fear that one time, but never defeat.

Now, though, she saw it. In the sagging shoulders and the slumping spine, the heavy invisible weights that hung from Mercy like a yoke and dragged her toward the floor.

“You have stolen,” she repeated, “from me, the only thing for which I cared - the only thing I loved, yourself, my dear. Send your little staff to their quarters. You are to go to the dining room. Bring the other two with you. You are to sit at the head of your table and they are to stand at either elbow, and none of you are to move until I say otherwise. Do you understand me?”

Confused, and far more afraid of Mercy’s calmness and defeat than she ever had been of the anger, Amélie could do nothing but nod. “Yes, Mistress,” she murmured, and then the Witch was gone.

There was a silent moment as she looked around the Master bedroom. All for nothing, it would seem.

A breath could be so many things - such potential, in a breath. It could become a shout or a cough, a huff or a sigh, a hiss or a laugh or any one of a million words in a thousand tones, it could be a song or a joke or a laugh.

The Countess wasn’t certain what form hers was going to take as she drew it. A cry, of anger or sadness; a question, a lamentation, frustration, irritation, a sad laugh or a weary sigh.

So many possibilities.

It was, of course, a command. The servant cannot deny the Mistress, after all.

“To the dining hall, _mes chéries,”_ the Countess instructed, plainly, holding her head still high.

Outside of the windows, a storm began to gather.

 

\---

 

She sat at the head of the table.

As if it could forestall the coming storm - the return of the Witch, surely in fury and destruction.

As if it might prevent any of the ills to come, as lightning flashed in ominous foretelling outside.

As if she had any other choice.

The Countess Lacroix - Amélie, some called her, sometimes - sat at the head of the table with her arms on the chair’s rests, and her legs crossed at the knee. On either side of her stood two others, lovers and partners, bound to their places by a word and unable to flee.

Not that they would have fled, anyway.

“Whatcha think’s gonna happen, love?” Lena wondered, glancing over.

“There is no telling,” Amélie responded swiftly, surely, her eyes fixed forward on the table’s far end. “A storm is always unpredictable.”

Lightning flashed, and the Witch was there. Seen before she was heard, as the first night - but this time not a grin gleaming with dark taunts. Rather, it was her eyes in the shadows, standing out and shining with anger and pain.

“I suppose congratulations should be in order. You’ve succeeded, in what it seems has been your goal all along - to despoil yourself beyond redemption, to rob me of yourself not just in the present but in memory as well. Quite selfish, my dear.”

Her voice did not sound angry, not in the loud and tumultuous way it had previously in this very same room, but as the lightning flashed once more and illuminated her face, the seething fury there was quite visible.

“I intended nothing of the sort,” Amélie protested from her chair, but the voices of the other two immediately overtook hers.

“You treat her like _garbage,”_ Lena shouted.

Emily yelled at the same time, “You’re awful, horrid, you are-”

“Be _quiet_ , _chéries,”_ the Countess hissed softly, and they were. She looked to the shadows again, to Mercy’s eyes. “Mistress, I- how could I do anything other than what you wished? You know I would only do this.”

The Witch approached, stepping forward with her broom clasped tightly in one hand and the same mockingly defiant strut of a walk as always. “Oh, do I? Why, then, my _dear_ , have you been so infuriating?”

“I have only tried to do what I thought you would want,” Amélie reiterated, her voice straining - but it was clear she would not be believed, and it made her doubt that she was telling the truth. Made her believer that she _was_ a liar, or at least perhaps one.

For a moment, at least.

“If there was anything you wanted me to avoid, you could simply have told me,” the Countess began, but was given no opportunity to finish - to go on and say that she would have listened even out of choice, would gladly have given the Witch that consideration.

Or, at least, she felt that way at the moment. Distantly she realized it had perhaps not always been the case - that there _had_ been rebellion in her, once, but it existed now only as a dim reminder.

Then again, Emily and Lena had been intended as dim reminders.

Regardless, she had no chance to continue her speech as the Witch cut her off. “Oh, and simply list every one of the myriad disagreeable things which you might do? Very well, how shall I begin - you are not to empty your bowels on the floor, nor the beds, nor the tables, nor-”

Amélie’s jaw clenched, teeth grinding against each other - at her own stupidity, said one part of her mind.

At the Witch’s mockery, said another.

“And even if I _had,”_ Mercy sneered, “how would that be of benefit? I have said - if once, a thousand times - that I have no wish to have you in a leash and collar. Is it so much to expect you to _behave appropriately?_ Yes, apparently it is - silence,” she commanded, as Amélie took a breath to interject.

“What, would you have me hollow out every scrap of will and mind,” the Witch leaned closer, reaching out a hand and caressing at the Countess’ cheek, a soft and entreating gesture as her blue eyes practically pleaded in silence, “and leave you empty?”

Amélie pushed into the gesture, rubbing her cheek against Mercy’s warm and soft hand as the Witch continued to speak. “An empty monument to yourself, to the woman you once were? Taken and stripped of all that made you _you_ save for the marble sculpture of your form? Speak, answer.”

A breath. “If it would prove my love to you,” Amélie whispered, “yes, Mistress, I would.”

The wrong answer.

“Ha!” The Witch recoiled instantly, bringing with her her hand and her warmth. “It proves only your cruelty! To deprive me of that - that which I prized, that which I longed for.”

“I have no desire to deprive you,” the Countess insisted, anxiety straining her voice.

“I fell in love with _you_ not the image of you,” the Witch spat, “and I only wished that you would do the same with me - that perhaps without _him,_ you might look upon _me_ the same, that we might last forever as eternal lovers after you embraced my gift, but no. No, you sulked and thought of him, and then you found these- _these_ two!”

The Witch flung out a hand in a sharp gesture, off beside the table by herself - the orchestra of the storm outside, with its thunder and its wind whipping at the trees, along with the flashing light of the lightning and the heavy rumbling felt in the chest, should have made for an entirely dramatic scene. It should have made her seem all the more powerful, all the more large and marvellous.

It didn’t.

She seemed so small, standing a few feet away from a table that could have sat so many around its perimeter, arm outthrust in the moonlight. The look of desperation in her shining eyes as they started to trickle over with tears.

Amélie believed her.

Of _course_ she believed her, how could she not? She knew that that had been the plan, for the two of them to be happy together - she believed wholeheartedly that that had been Mercy’s goal the entire time.

She simply didn’t know how she had been meant to get there.

“And now,” Mercy whispered softly, the storm seeming to abate accordingly and give itself over to quietness in order to let her be heard, “my dear, you have spoiled yourself, because how can I look at you without being reminded of that all?”

A gloved hand, upheld, cut off Amélie’s protests, and the Witch spoke again. “Tell me truthfully - when you look at me, are you reminded of all of the pain? Of the horrors and angers of years past? Of hatred?”

Amélie looked into her eyes, deep into her eyes, and wished it could be a different question, but she knew that the answer must already be known.

“Yes.”

Mercy shook her head softly. “As it is for me, with you, my dear - so, congratulations, you have succeeded where none other ever did, not since- not since my pathetic last night as a miserable human, have I done what you forced me to do. Never, since then, have I failed.”

Then, again, she was gone.

The Countess turned, looking to Emily whose shocked eyes seemed to say _“She was human once?”_ and Lena whose burning eyes seemed to say _“If I could move, an inch, I would slay her - if I could speak a word, I would flay her with my words.”_

Their eyes said much, but of course, their mouths could not. Nor could any of them move, not yet.

“I suppose we must simply wait, _chéries,”_ Amélie sighed.

Outside, the storm grew worse.

The windows shook in their frames as the wind battered them, lashed them with rain; the shingles were surely given a run for it for every bit of repair that had been done to them, and the window-seals and the doors as well.

The Countess heard a pane of glass shatter somewhere, upstairs, and she suspected without knowing that it was in the Master bedroom - she was certain that, if she ever went up there again, the storm would have had its way in through that broken window and ravaged the room.

No matter, though. It could be replaced.

It took less time than she thought for a return to take place.

The front door flew open, thunder heralding its slam, and as it did, the Witch appeared in the middle of the room.

Open or closed, locked or free, she never seemed to care for the doors - and, as always, she stood dry and unaffected, as if she was not touched by the storm.

All except for her eyes. Her furious, sad eyes.

A bellow from the front door announced the presence of another, a voice that Amélie somewhat recognized - the voice of Jesse McCree, the Hunter who had been hired by the townsfolk. “Where is the beast?”

Amélie had no concern over it, not until she saw the soft and teasing smirk on Mercy’s lips as she reached up a hand to gently wave in the general direction of the front door. “Oh, we’re in here, Jesse darling - do come and _join us,_ won’t you?”

Fear shot through the Countess’ core, clear across her visage as well; she hadn’t known the Hunter was one of the Witch’s other servants, hadn’t even _known_ the Witch had other servants although she’d suspected as much.

It was a worrisome thought.

“We made a deal,” Amélie insisted, “you promised me life!”

“I _gave_ you life,” the Witch retorted, “and you threw it away, my dear. You broke our deal by stealing power for which you never bartered. Now, it is time to pay your price.”

She didn’t sound cruel, or mocking - she sounded sad and resigned, and she looked it as well, right up until jangling footsteps entered the room.

“Ah,” the Witch smiled, turning to McCree who stood, soaked and dripping, revolver in hand. In a moment she was at his side, even without moving, trailing a hand up his glowing metal arm as she locked eyes with Amélie over his shoulder. “How are you liking your new arm, Jesse, darling?”

“Think I’d like the old one back,” he growled back to her, lips sneering around his extinguished cigar.

Mercy, however - of course - just laughed, that same high and dismissive laugh as always.

“Well, that might be easy enough,” she pulled his chin over with a fingertip, smiling softly. “Simply trade me back your bullets, and I’ll return your arm! Hmm, although,” she frowned slightly, then pouted. “I’m not sure how you’d go about _reattaching_ it at this point. But,” her grin returned, “I suppose a deal could always be struck…”

McCree stood stock-still, gritting his teeth - his cigar twitched, belying the unseen movements of his jaw, and he only grunted in response but it carried the clear weight of a _no._

“Very well,” the Witch laughed, “but you still have another price to be paid - and it’s quite simple, Jesse.”

“Stop, what-” the Countess shouted in exasperation from the head of the table, the position of power but with all of the power stripped. “Please, _Mercy,_ you must not do this.”

“I think you will find it is _you_ who has much she must do,” the Witch growled back through gritted teeth, glowering before she turned and was at Amélie’s elbow in an instant.

Her fingertip was so warm, so soft and so unyielding as it lifted the Countess’ chin until they locked eyes.

“Tell me, my dear,” the Witch murmured, almost thoughtfully. “Forget every instruction I ever gave you before tonight, every command and every order - every leash and collar you ever snapped at me because of, and every one which failed to curb your foolishness - and tell me. Just tell me _WHY?”_

Her voice cracked at the last word, suddenly and harshly as the lightning struck, and Amélie - the Countess, the Widowmaker ,the noble and the beast - felt such a shock through her. Things suppressed for years came lurching back up with a vengeance, every time she’d been told to bow her head or bite her tongue forgotten.

 _“Because,”_ she snarled, “because this was _my_ life, _my_ curse, _my_ suffering, and I did with it as _I_ chose!”

She wasn’t sure what she expected, anger or perhaps that odd desperate look on the Witch’s face again, but of course, Mercy did the unexpected and smiled softly. Smiled softly and caressed her cheek, gently, her hand so warm as she leaned down to whisper in the Countess’ ear.

“It was _never_ your life.”

The caressing hand pulled back and returned swiftly in a slap, the Witch whirling away as Amélie growled and glared at her.

“You think you know suffering?” Mercy held up a hand as the Countess went to respond, sharp teeth flashing in the moonlight, and silenced her with a word. “Quiet, not yet my dear - you’ll answer in a moment, but you think you know suffering? You think that you - _you,_ who was born with a silver spoon in hand and knew not a _day_ of hunger, know suffering?”

Not a day of hunger was a laughable assertion, and Amélie _would_ have laughed, had she been able - and a part of her delighted in the dark irony of that, that Mercy had become so furious over Amélie lack of laughter and now she had inspired it so succinctly.

She had always hated irony.

The Witch’s eyes flashed as the lightning did too, throwing stark light across her face. “What do you know of suffering, then?”

Around them, and around, she stepped as she spoke - a few paces took her from Amélie’s left shoulder to her right, and then without any interim she was on the other side of the table, draping a hand along McCree’s shoulders.

“What do _you_ know,” she murmured, her words soft accusations that her eyes added weight to as well, “of a father who pokes and prods at you however he chooses; your body, his personal plaything, until the day that he deems you no longer fresh enough to be interesting and discards you for your younger sister instead, hmm? You think _your_ life had abuse and hardship - well, what do you think of that?”

The Countess glared silently back, teeth set tightly against each other and claws digging into the dark-stained wood of the chair’s arm rests, her eyes and her gut burning with the words she refused to say - with mentions of silver and blood, of manacles and bonds, of abandonment and hunger, and of _pity._

Still, the Witch continued.

“What do _you_ know,” she laughed, running a hand over Amélie’s head and then turning, twirling, and appearing behind McCree again, “of hunger? What do you know of starvation, of lying in a gutter as your stomach eats through itself, begging passersby for the moldiest scrap of bread - of fighting rats for rotting food and _losing_ and being left with nothing but rat-scratches and hunger, hmm? You think you know hunger - well, what do you think of that?”

Amélie straightened in her chair, correcting her posture which had become a sharp lean of anger. Perhaps she’d known nothing of hunger in her former life, but now? Now, she stared into Mercy’s blue eyes and dared her to answer - what did _she_ know of a hunger so deep that every beat of a nearby heart was deafening in her ears, and all the moreso given that it came from a heart pumping blood she was barred from drinking?

Or two of them, even, but that could be nothing except twice as bad.

Their entire life together, Amélie had sought out more about the Witch - had tried, and searched, and wrangled conversations desperately attempting to wring out any facts she could manage to scrimp.

Now, it seemed, there was a feast of them, and she hardly cared.

Her appetite truly _was_ fickle at times.

The Witch came close again, pivoting around a hand on her shoulder - she never touched Emily or Lena, only the Hunter and the Huntress, her _servants,_ Amlie noticed - and she straddled the Countess’ lap.

Amélie had been ordered to disregard her prior orders, to forget the commands given, but she’d not forgotten it all; she recalled easily every passionate moment, every soft touch, the taste of Mercy’s lips and skin and blood.

As a fingertip caressed at her chin, she raised it, searching out the Witch’s lips as the brim of her wide hat brushed against the top of Amélie’s head.

“What do you know, what it is to be used?” Her words were soft - almost as soft as her lips, barely touching against Amélie’s as their eyes burned across the scant inches between them. “What do you know of any thug who wanders past having his way with you - of _trying_ to entice the largest of them in hopes that they’ll keep the smaller ones away, but they never do, and only toss your left-over scraps to the others once they’re done, hmm? You think you know abuse - well, what do you think of that?”

She thought it sounded horrid. Perhaps more horrid than being ravaged by a metal which was anathema to her, or being forced to suffer with a word - or being nearly drained to death against a tree, or in a bath, or any one of so many other places.

Perhaps.

“What…” the Witch’s voice trailed even softer, brows pulling in as she searched Amélie’s eyes - peered in and scrutinized all she could, intensely seeking something, “do _you_ know, of pain? What do you know of- of lying on a forest floor, cold and alone and scared, no person to hear your cries as they fade into silence. Your own ears failing you, so your last cries are heard by no person at all, and only after you grow silent - only then, does a dark being offer you a deal, for new life and power.”

Amélie simply sat, and looked calmly back into the Witch’s eyes.

“You think you know suffering,” Mercy murmured, leaning back slightly. “Well, what do you think of that? Speak, answer me.”

A breath has so much possibility - it can be words or a shout, an insult or a plea.

It can be, at any time, a _last_ breath, and one never knows.

“I think,” the Countess whispered, raising her chin, “that I learned plenty from a fine tutor in you, Mistress.”

The Witch stared back at her - defiant eyes, straight back, raised chin, every part the picture of strength unbent and unbroken - and she smiled. Smiled, leaned down, and kissed Amélie briefly on the lips.

She was gone in an instant, standing at the Hunter’s elbow and sighing a breath. “Jesse, darling. Kill her.”

The revolver raised in an instant, extending, and Amélie had a moment to wonder whose word would take priority - would the Witch’s command overpower the one she’d had Sombra give? The protection she’d once thought in place.

There certainly wasn’t much time, and little she could do - no chance to move, but a chance at least to do something she’d never done before as she let her eyes slide closed.

“Goodbye,” she whispered, and awaited whatever would come next.

Storms were so unpredictable, so unlike the hunt. In time, one learns that sometimes you must simply hunker down and see if you manage to weather it.

Silence.

No gunshot.

The Countess opened her eyes.

“Jesse,” the Witch hissed, “have you gone deaf? I told you to _kill her,_ now do it!”

She saw an inkling of movement in his head, just a hint of a shake; the tiniest telegraph of a deer tensing to flee. Or perhaps a cat preparing to pounce.

“I ain’t your _slave_ anymore!” McCree shouted, whirling and unleashing a shot - but the Witch had surely seen what Amélie had, and was in an instant behind the Countess’ chair.

“What is he- _you_ did this,” she hissed. “Order him to stop, my dear.”

Amélie, the Countess Lacroix former and current, held out her hand in her best indication of bidding. “Stop, Hunter!” She called out the command, knowing full well that it would be meaningless - knowing full well that _her_ word held no bearing.

McCree spat out his cigar in fury; he’d held his tongue for so long for two reasons. One being an attempt to hide his fangs from a Mistress he was certain would be furious over the matter, and the latter was the hope that these two monsters might tear _each other_ apart, but that wasn’t happening - and he refused to be a pawn.

If he was going to kill something, it was going to be the greater of two evils.

“I ain’t _your_ slave either,” he laughed, letting off another shot - one that pierced the chair over the Countess’ shoulder as she sat perfectly still.

“What have you _done?”_ Mercy screeched from behind her, grabbing the chair and spinning it around to face her. “Stop him, my dear - rise, make _them_ stop him, something, _anything!”_

Amélie wondered for a moment why she was even still there - if there was some limitation on her ability to leave and return without notice - but she had no choice in the matter, and she wouldn’t have wished to anyway.

After all, who would permit their love to die?

“Stop him, _mes chéries,”_ she commanded with a grin as she pushed herself up from the chair.

Another bullet split the air, another sharp gunshot and McCree laughed. “You think I’ve never fought Witches before? All of your spells - you think there’s nothing to fight them?”

He let off another pair of shots blindly, unable to see Mercy, and growled in frustration. He didn’t like dealing with magic, but as his deal with _her_ proved, he was willing to do it if it let him defeat something greater. With the help of her bullets and her arm, he’d been able to destroy a powerful beast in another land.

Little did he know the price he’d be paying, or for how long.

There were a lot of uses for the enchanted talismans he’d obtained, though - many, many creatures transported themselves from one place to another. He hadn’t necessarily been _intending_ to use them on her.

It had dovetailed so neatly, though.

She could hop around the room a little, but couldn’t flee further than that - back to the realm he knew she called home - and that meant he might just have a shot.

Although, he hadn’t counted on all the Vampires.

Two of them - red hair and brown, one who he snarled as he recognized as his first feeding, his first victim - leapt at him across the table, propelled with supernatural speed. It would have spelled disaster for him.

Any other day.

Any day in the past, before the week or so since he’d been turned himself and gained access to all the same that they had - and yes, there were two of them, but they weren’t fighters.

Emily had never really been in a fight, and Lena hadn’t outside of bar brawls or the scuffles of youth in alleyways and gutters - but McCree was a trained soldier, well-versed in all styles of combat which one might care to name or enumerate.

Not to mention brawls in both bars and alleys alike, as well.

They healed quickly - he broke the redhead’s arm and she yowled, raking at his face with claws; he couldn’t kill them _either_ because he’d been commanded not to, but he could still disable them.

He only needed one shot anyway.

Amélie entered the fray with a snarl and a shout, trying to rip the revolver from his hand. He yanked it free and lashed out with something - something _silver_ , she recognized the sensation, as it slashed at her forearm and forced her into recoiling.

Just for an instant, but that was all he needed. His metal elbow lashed up into Lena’s chin, knocking her off-guard just long enough for him to grab a cylinder from his belt.

It exploded with a noise in excess of any gunshot Amélie had ever heard, a light twenty times as much as any of the lightning-flashes outside - it filled the room with light which burned her eyes and her skin and left her screeching, stunned, along with the other two.

He only ever needed an instant.

Jesse McCree, semi-professional beast hunter, rolled away from the stunned trio and came up with a laugh, and wasted no time in boasting or anything else - he simply shot.

He only needed one shot anyway.

There was a scream - Mercy’s scream, joined shortly by a second, Amélie’s. She barreled past the triumphant Hunter, wrapping her Mistress up protectively.

 

\---

 

There were tales told of Witches, and of one in particular - one who offered deals, to the unwary. One who would sell anything for the right price, one who may have twisted her word but always kept it. She was a being of unknown provenance, unknown because she never spoke of it, never gave any name except for _Mercy,_ the one thing for which she was unwilling to barter.

A Hunter named Jesse McCree had sought her out once, wishing for bullets that were capable of slaying any foe. She had smiled, and provided them, and taken an arm and his will in exchange.

Bullets capable of slaying _any_ foe, and a foe she’d certainly made of herself - she gasped, breaths failing to come properly into her lungs as she held at the wound in her gut which gushed with terrifying speed.

The Countess stared, openly; the Witch had always seemed so undefeatable, and now there she lay, in Amélie’s arms, dying.

She turned to McCree, but he was already striding away - hat on his head, spurs jangling as he walked out of the door. “Good riddance,” he called back, and then was gone.

Good riddance?

Yes, she was rid of her - finally, she was rid of the Witch, who had so debased her, had taunted and tormented her, had stolen away her life and her love and her pride and replaced them with hunger and hatred.

Yes, she was rid of her - rid of her clutching talons and her sickly-sweet words, of her too-familiar touches and her consistently repetitive _my dears,_ rid of her lips and her hands and every piece in between and beyond.

Yes, she was rid of her - bereft of her soft words, and the caresses of her hand on the cheek, and the smile she sometimes wore, robbed of her warmth and the taste of her kisses and her skin.

Yes, she was rid of her - of the one who had killed her.

Of the one who had given her new life.

All Amélie now had, she owed to the Witch.

Her strength and her power, her life, her memories, her entertainments, her food; every single thing which she hated and every single one she enjoyed, was all due to Mercy, all owed to her.

A glimmer of light caught Amélie’s eye as the Witch gasped again, twitching - dying, but not swiftly, in her arms. Arms which were still smeared with that thick, black, viscous substance which she had in place of blood.

Another thing which she owed to the Witch.

The least she could do would be to repay the debt in kind.

Something clicked within her mind, pieces falling in to place; the Witch's love had always been cruel, harsh, unkind at times - taunting, teasing, mocking. Amélie had thought this meant her love was less, but no, that was simply how it was.

With the Witch, love _was_ hate.

That fact set clearly in mind, Amelie knew precisely what to do; how to demonstrate all she had learned from her perfect teacher, and a grin as narrow as any assassin's knife began to grow on her lips.

It felt as if she’d been following a path blindly through the forest for years, seeing imprint after imprint and not realizing they were tracks - not noticing how they led, or the spacing between them which spoke of the beast’s pace, nor the depth which told the force with which the hooves or footpads had struck the ground, but now she _had_ noticed the trail and it was so clear.

She knew where it had begun, on that cold stormy night so many years ago, with a broken horse and a shattered will, a deal and a new life. She knew where the path had led, through nights and days and _years,_ through feedings and hunger and warmth and cold, through confusion and certainty and shock.

Now, as well, she knew where it was leading. She knew what prey was at its head.

Finally, she could catch that fox.

“Oh, dear,” Amélie murmured softly, stroking at the Witch’s forehead - her hat had fallen off in the scuffle, and her eyes stared back now in shock and horror and fear as her mouth gasped below them. “What a… _terrible_ wound, why, you could not _possibly_ survive that…”

The words came so easily - the same the Countess had heard, so many years and decades ago, and they brought a smile that curled the corners of her lips.

The Witch’s face writhed as she gasped again, half-coughed, shuddered.

“I can help you,” Amélie grinned, wider and wider. “Heal you, give you new life - you will be… _beyond_ this death, _ma chérie._ Out of its clutches, yes? It is…” a smirk flickered at one corner of her mouth, quickly giving way to a fake pout, “only a very small price I ask in return.”

The Witch, Mercy, who had forgotten whatever name had been given to her by a mother beyond the gates of memory and recanted by a father with more interest in her body than her name, who had already died and been reborn anew - who never failed to twist her words, but never failed to uphold them either, gasped weakly.

She knew what was being offered. She knew the price.

Death was overtaking her, her mind rapidly losing its ability to process thoughts, but she had a few.

She’d lived her life, and fought for it, and refused to die now.

She didn’t have the perfect pet on her pedestal yet.

She thought that, perhaps, in that smile and the dancing eyes above it, she saw the woman she’d once fallen in love with.

Perhaps.

She accepted it with desperation, with a wet gasp and weakly outstretched arms, she sought whatever future her former servant could give her.

“Please,” the soon-to-be- _former_ Witch croaked, “yes.”

With full knowledge of what it would entail, with every dark concept of what price she might be forced to pay - with twisted visions of torment and torture unlike any on this Earth as the future she expected, the dying Mercy accepted her fate.

Amélie smiled, and leaned down; she bit into the Witch’s neck for the last glorious taste of her that there ever would be, the blood slightly bitter for its proximity to death but still far in excess of almost any other she’d ever tasted, and she felt and heard Mercy’s heart falter.

Flicker.

Fade.

A black smear on the side of her neck, and a moment of waiting, and a silent plea of hope.

After all, the bullet would surely kill her - but they _always_ died before they turned.

A last beat. A last breath, out in the smallest and saddest of sighs, not even a whimper to her nonexistent name at the end of it all.

Amélie held her, in silence.

Silence.

_Silence._

A beat.

A gasp - a new breath, with new possibilities, and the Witch coughed and shook as her body began its transformation, but she was given no empty time and room in which to deal with it.

Amélie lifted her up, running a hand through blonde hair while it was still warm; pressed a deep and fervent and almost furious kiss to Mercy’s mouth, and withdrew enough to murmur against her lips as they locked eyes.

 _“Now,_ you will believe me,” the Countess smiled softly, her eyes wide with excitement and anticipation. “Now you will doubt no longer - _now,_ _ma chérie,_ you _will_ know the truth in my words when I say that I love you. Am I understood?”

Mercy, the one-time Witch, shivered slightly in her creator’s arms, and craned her neck to entreat another kiss even as something deep within her recoiled. Soft words slipped from her lips.

“Yes, Mistress.”

 

\---

 

 

 

**END OF ACT THREE: THE DYING BREATH / THE SHOT IS FIRED**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, my dears - there it is, and are we pleased? Not exactly the ending some of you had hoped for, I daresay, but a chilling one as well I might suggest - and I understand that it leaves perhaps a little bit too much up in the air, but there will be an Epilogue tomorrow, a short one, that caps off some final things and adds a little more closure.
> 
> Now, I'm going to go back through and slowly add Author's notes as I think of them, and I'm going to read it through again - from beginning fresh to end, something I've not yet done - and I wonder how, at the story's end, I'll feel about myself and all I've done? I wonder how Amélie felt about the same, or Mercy - or Lena or Emily, or any of the others.
> 
> I do hope you enjoyed yourselves, my dears - and I do hope you have questions, as well! I love questions, they show me you've been paying attention; I've generally been replying to comments when I upload the next segment, but of course with no more real _segments_ to come, that will end now and I'll go to simply responding to comments when I can.
> 
> This has been quite an undertaking, but I'll not have much time to recover; NaNoWriMo begins tomorrow, and with it a new story - and that's not to mention all of the much less dark and much more delightful Overwatch stuff I have to work on, things I'm truly excited about, all.
> 
> Although, let me take a moment to say this - while this tale was twisted and grim, it is only the _second-_ most of its kind out of the stories I currently have in mind. I have a story in mind that at least draws even with this one for cruelty throughout, and in terms of the ending? It far, _far_ outstrips this one for horror.
> 
> Tell me, my dears... would you want to read this other story, at some point? If your curiosity is piqued, by all means let me know or ask more about it - but, know that it would be no time soon. I am generous, after all, but I can give only so much, and toxicity like this is a stress and a strain; there is a middle-ground which I much more appreciate, where I find a greater ease in writing.
> 
> Although I must admit to a few turns of phrase and plot in here that I really quite enjoyed.
> 
> Well, I suppose that's mostly it from me for now, my dears - I wait in anticipation whatever comments you have for me. After all, what sort of Mistress doesn't care about the feelings of those she gives to?
> 
> J.


	14. Epilogue

**EPILOGUE**

 

 

 

\---

 

_ There is a town named Annecy which is well-favoured by merchant and artist alike. The chief township of a County once thought lost - the lands were once a hectic place, no ruler to protect or guide them; the lineage thought dead forever, bountiful edges of beautiful lands poached off by nearby Counts, until a remnant of the family line returned with proof of her heritage and ushered in what they all called a Golden Age, many many years ago. _

_ They were right to call it that, and for generations the town - and the County surrounding - have flourished. Art and business, industry and harvest; all are welcomed freely into the borders. All who return, sing only its praises - though a great many choose simply to settle once they find their way there. _

_ Most, in fact. _

_ They say it is a land of culture and grace, of beauty and love, full bellies and fuller hearts, ruled over by a Countess and her five consorts: four women and one man. They are gorgeous, each, rivaling the sun itself with their radiance, and no person of the town can say a single unseemly thing about them, not in the slightest. Artists come from far lands begging to be graced with the mere chance of meeting them, knowing full well all the while that they can only fail to capture the group’s beauty - yet, they try still. _

_ The Countess and her consorts are often seen amongst the people, guiding them, mingling with them; wide are the smiles of the townsfolk whenever those beauties choose to take to the town, and they do so quite often. Balls and other events are thrown regularly in their Château, as well, and on the grounds - the plentiful rooms opened up freely to all those who would choose to remain the night there rather than returning to their own homes, and every one of them agrees that they are simply the finest parties one could ever hope to attend. _

_ Even if, perhaps, none quite recall the specifics. _

_ The Château itself is resplendent, an artefact of the original ruling family Guillard, but restored to modern glory; fine rugs and silken sheets in the deepest, richest red adorn every bed and floor, gorgeous thick curtains hang from every window, the Countess' trophy room holding a truly impressive variety of horns and pelts from lands both far-off and near, including the most perfect and pure white fox pelt any visitor has ever laid eyes upon. _

_ She, the Countess, is considered unrivaled in her wit, her beauty, her grace, her strength - by any person you might ask, any individual within the County at all. Unrivaled save for, perhaps - just perhaps - by her consorts. Five of them, four women and one man; both companion and aide, courtier and courtesan, and no person in the town thinks it unseemly, and every one is glad to see any one of them. _

_...and if all of the paintings in the Château's halls, stretching back generations and generations - supposed mothers and fathers, grandparents, previous consorts of previous Countesses; if all of those portraits look eerily similar, and if every one of the six seems to have teeth that gleam just a little too brightly, just a little too sharply, and if every one of them seems to have a deep and hungry glimmer in their eyes, well, none could guess the reason for that... _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, of course, I must jump right into NaNoWriMo; but, rest assured, my dears, I will return here as soon as my nightly words are finished. Such are the obligations of any Mistress or Master, no? I do hope you enjoyed this little Epilogue, though, and hope it puts a nice little final polish on the whole sordid affair.
> 
> A nice little final polish, and perhaps one or two final little thrills of chills down your spines, my dear readers.
> 
> J.


End file.
